The Senate on Tues¬day began consideration of the 2014 Appropriation Bill as Senate President David Mark pleaded with his colleagues to see the consideration of the budget as a national assignment.
Leaders of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) had last week direct¬ed its federal lawmakers to block all executive bills including the 2014 budget until Rivers State crisis is resolved.
At resumption of plenary after weekend break and before senators began debate, Mark said, “Let us see the budget from a national periscope and not a political party’s periscope. Let us use a national magnifying glass to view it and not reduce it to partisan politics”.
Victor Ndoma-Egba, Sen¬ate leader from Cross River, in his lead debate explained that the bill sought to authorise the issue from the consolidated revenue fund the sum of N4.6 trillion as against the 2013 budget which had the total sum of N4.9 trillion.
He said, “The breakdown is as follows: statutory trans¬fers will amount to N399.6 billion, debt service is N712 billion, recurrent expenditure is N2.4 trillion while contribution to the development fund for capital expenditure is N1.1 trillion”.
He said the 2014 budget was predicated on assumptions that benchmark oil price would be $77.5 per barrel and projected oil production of 2.3 million barrels per day.
Other assumptions, ac¬cording to him, were that the average exchange rate of N160 per US dollar which was the same as in 2013 and a projected GDP growth rate of 6.75 percent, noting that the capital expenditure outlay of the Appropriation Bill 2014 was structured to improve and effectively address critical areas of the economy.
Ndoma-Egba said, “Some of the sectoral allocations that are meant to galvanise and reduce the infrastructure deficit in the country as well as enhance inclusive economic growth are: Sure-P, N268.3 billion; power, N99 billion; works, N128.6 billion; defence, N34.3 billion; police, N6.7 billion; education, N725.9 billion; agriculture/rural development, N66.6 billion; health, N262.7 bil¬lion; INEC, N45 billion.
“The 2014 budget focuses on job creation through several projects like power by completion of privatisation of NIPP projects, accelerate works on gas pipeline in¬frastructure and continued investment in hydro-electric power.”
He explained that the 2014 budget was designed to build on the successes of the 2013 budget with emphasis on fiscal consolidation, inclusive growth and job creation.
Ahmed Lawal, chairman, Senate committee on public accounts from Yobe State, in his contribution picked holes with the budget, alleging lopsidedness and said it favoured one section of the country and called for balance in the allocations.
