President Goodluck Jonathan earns full blame for the controversy that has erupted over the 2014 budget; in what is certainly another political miscalculation and embarrassing error of judgment which portends unfavorable results for the country. After signing the 2014 Appropriations Bill into law, the President last Friday, formally handed the document to Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and the Director of Budget Office, Bright Okogu, for implementation. But a day earlier, Jonathan sent a presidential request to the Senate seeking fresh budgets for 52 federal agencies and parastatals; which was rejected outright by the Upper Chamber as a backdoor attempt to smuggle a fresh budget for agencies which had already been appropriated in the N4.695 trillion 2014 budget that Mr. President just signed. It is difficult to fathom the basis of this ludicrous new budget anomaly, involving mind-boggling amounts, but cynicism is quite high amongst lawmakers that the money the President is seeking may be part of the slush funds for the 2015 elections.
Quite predictably, the issue generated so much controversy and anger when the chairman of the Senate Business and Rules Committee, Senator Ita Enang, presented the motion for consideration. Hardly had the motion been read, did senators rise in strong condemnation, arguing it amounted to returning the already passed budget to the senate for reconsideration through the back door. Senators particularly frowned at the source of the presidential request which they argued breached the normal channel of communication between the president and the senate. The law makers described as curious the letter by Ita Enang to all senators in respect of the presidential request, which they said was unprecedented. Ruling on the matter, Senate President, David Mark directed that federal agencies whose 2014 budget had not been approved be separated from the list of 52 and be presented for debate.
All of this is tacky and avoidable if Mr. President had adopted the budgeting process, in word and indeed, as his first responsibility tool for Nigeria. Whatever the case, the induced diffidence on the part of the presidency over the single most important annual document that encapsulates all the plans the government has in its supposed service to the Nigerian people, is simply a failure of leadership. What is clearly at issue here is not that some federal agencies were omitted from the original budget that is now the 2014 finance law. The fact that no lawmaker noticed this anomaly is a sad commentary on the attitude of legislators to their statutory responsibility. Looking at Section 21 of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which provides that the budget of the agencies be submitted along with the budget, it is clear, by any stretch of imagination, that the section does not say or imply nor intend what Senator Ita Enang ascribed to it. This kind of budgetary lawlessness is a misconception of the 1999 Constitution generally and a lamentable misrepresentation of the Fiscal Responsibility Act thereof in particular.
From the shoddy attitude of the Budget Office and the President’s embarrassing gaffe, all is late about the 2014 budget. Attempting to waste time deliberating these feckless new proposals serves no purpose and qualifies perfectly as condoning illegality. It is simply safe to say apart from being a waste of time; it portrays the so-called Senators as indolent and not given to doing their homework properly before going to town. It is absurd for members of the National Assembly, the highest law making body of the land, to give the impression that they are not familiar with the basic provisions of the constitution. This is not a good image for the Senate collectively and for the individual members.
The 2014 budget itself provides barely any reason to expect development of infrastructure and even human capital. Under the very inadequate capital provisions are so many self-serving projects for the political elite, which send no signal of frugality or desire to transform the fortunes of the nation! There is no provision for development. No provision for the future of Nigerians. The indolence in the 2014 budget certainly stems from some self-serving rash of statistics from the rebased economic figures, extolling the Nigerian economy, spewing curious inventory of positive macroeconomic success that hardly reflects the reality of Nigerian living conditions. Conspicuous consumption is clearly the norm and this is abominable.
Either way, the responsibility for this anomaly lies squarely with the President and his party, the PDP. In his four years of effective Presidency, Jonathan has not imposed any discipline to the process and ethos of the budget. And that is a pity because the President owns the budget and can never delegate that ownership. It is a sad comment on the President’s style and an unflattering advertisement of his apathetic approach to the substance and form of the national budget that he has surrendered the sovereignty of fiscal decisions to appointed officials. This is unacceptable. Also, the ruling PDP is not blameless. With the absence of a cogent manifesto or whose manifesto is hardly the concern of its elected officials, the PDP has not been helpful with the budget, which ironically, is the document that should contain the philosophy and goals that the electorate ostensibly voted for. The PDP ought to prove to Nigerians that these budget proposals are truly its covenant with voters and furthermore, in tandem with the party’s founding spirit.
The attitude of the Presidency negates the cardinal place of the Federal budget in the life of the nation, and leaves no one in doubt, that Jonathan has been derelict in his duty, to own this all-important national document. The President’s philosophy and vision are central to the budget, and, therefore, far more than economic projections. In a country where government has crowded out the private sector, despite bouts of privatization, and the public sector is the biggest business entity, the national budget is the oxygen of national life. It, therefore, should embody the vision and bear the imprimatur of the person Nigerians elected to the job.
The controversy over the 2014 budget contradicts the President’s own avowals, in the past three years, to present the budget early and have the National Assembly debate the document in good time, and start implementation on January 1 as it ought to be. This tardy attention to the budget process implants fiscal and monetary policies that embarrass the country. In spite of touted growth and so-called rebasing of the Gross National Product (GDP), it is common knowledge that the national economy is on auto-pilot, on the remote mode dictated by foreign and personal interests. The country’s foreign reserve is depleting, its proven reserve of hydrocarbon has reduced from about 45 billion barrels in 2009 to a current estimate of 35 billion barrels. Above all, the naira has received its worst bashing in recent years in the foreign exchange market at an official rate of N165 to the dollar. The President must recognize that the budget ought to be a people’s budget that transcends sloganeering. This is a redemption song the lawmakers should not ignore; they must ensure this budget anomaly never repeats itself.
