Several development projects worth over N102 billion are now at risk as senators consider scrapping the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P).
The demand for the total scrapping of the scheme and zero allocation to the programme this year, was loud during the deliberation on the 2015 budget at the last plenary by the Senate.
According to Issah Galaudu, a senator, this year’s SURE-P budget is “dead on arrival”.
If the senators had their way, projects such as the rehabilitation of Lagos-Shagamu-Ibadan dual carriageway worth N10billion; Abuja rail mass transit project,worth N2billion, maternal and child health project, worth N4billion; augmentation for East-West road (N11.2billion) , captured in the 2015 budget under SURE-P intervention programme will not see the light of the day.
Other projects that would be at risk are the public works for youths (N2billion); counterpart fund for polio eradication programme and routine immunisation (N15.3billion); counterpart fund for HIV/AIDS programme (N2billion) and several others.
Bright Okogu, director-general, Budget Office, had during the budget breakdown session, said that such intervention programmes like SURE-P, YouWIN and G-WIN, will continue “though with some scaling back”.
Lawmakers who made submissions during the second reading of the 2015 budget, reasoned that rather than being scaled down, the SURE-P particularly, should be scrapped, since the cost of refined products have already crashed as a result of falling prices in the international market. Oil price crashed to $47 per barrel last Friday but is now at $49.62
They submitted that but for the gross fiscal indiscipline being displayed by the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), funds from the nation’s revenue earning agencies should be enough to carry the budget.
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Ita Enang, chairman, Senate Committee on Rules and Business, explained to BusinessDay that: “Subsidy reinvestment was the alternative fund that was used in funding petroleum products. Now, if petroleum products have come down to about $46 per barrel, the price of the refined products should also come down by over 50 per cent.
“There is no more provision to be used in providing subsidy for the people. And if there is fund for that subsidy, then there is no more subsidy fund invested. You can only have subsidy reinvestment if the people have subsidy surplus. So, if the price of the product has come down, you don’t subsidise”.
The Federal Government in February 2012 initiated SURE-P as a deliberate policy to reinvest its share of the savings arising from the reduction of subsidies on petroleum products on critical infrastructure projects and social safety net programmes that will directly ameliorate the sufferings of Nigerians and mitigate the impact of subsidy removal.
According to Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Co-ordinating Minister for the Economy and Finance Minister, the implementation of the programme has been successful and continues to improve .
She said while presenting the 2015 budget in December, that N268.37 billion was voted for various social safety net programmes and infrastructure projects in 2014 and that so far, N208.3 billion or 78% of this amount had been spent on various job creation initiatives and infrastructure projects.
“The SURE-P programme continues to support Social Safety Net programmes like Save One Million Lives, which has saved over 631,250 lives by giving renewed priority to health interventions, including nutrition, prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV, malaria control, and routine immunisation.
“Job creation efforts under SURE-P are doing well, with the Graduate Internship Scheme (GIS) hiring and deploying 13,339 graduates so far and the Community Services, Women and Youth Employment (CSWYE) creating nearly 120,000 jobs for youth, with a minimum of 3,000 in each state and the FCT.
“ Several infrastructure projects across the country – such as the Lagos-Kano railway, the Abuja-Lokoja road, and the rehabilitation of the Benin-Ore-Shagamu road , were completed or advanced through SURE-P resources”.
The Finance Minister confirmed that N102.5 billion has been earmarked as the SURE-P budget in 2015. This, according to her, is made up of the Federal Government’s share of N53 billion from the savings from the partial removal of subsidy on petrol, augmented by the estimated unspent balance of about N49.5 billion in 2014.
She, however, emphasised that the actual money for SURE-P in 2015 will depend on average actual market price in the year.
