The 2016 appropriation document Presented to the joint session of the National Assembly, NASS, late 2015 by President Muhammadu Buhari is expected to generate heated debates in the nation’s political space as federal lawmakers resume this week following the Charismas and New Year holiday.
President Buhari had on December 22, 2015 submitted a budget proposal of N6.07 trillion for the year 2016 to the NASS which was presided over by Bukoka Saraki, Senate President and his counterpart in the House of Representative, Speaker Yakubu Dogara, as required by the constitution. The budget was benchmarked at $38 per crude oil barrel and at 197 Naira exchange rate at the time.
But unconfirmed report says the budget proposal has been withdrawn by the presidency following the visit and after scathing comments by Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, IMF, from the leadership of the NASS, underscored by its sudden disappearance from the official website of the Budget Office.
As at the time of filing in this report, the budget proposal of 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, including the appropriation bills submitted under former presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and late Musa Yar’a’dua, are still available on the Budget Office website except the 2016 proposal.
“Usually, budget proposal is posted on the website of the Budget Office. As I speak to you now the 2016 budget proposal is yet to be published on its website. You can see that there is a problem in that regard. It is not good enough for the budget not to be on the website. Nigerians ought to see and criticize it before it is passed”, says Oluseun Onigbinde, co-founder, BudgIT & Knight International Innovation Fellow (KIIF), a foremost Lagos-based civic tech organization.
According to him, since the President has already presented the budget to the legislature, the budget traditionally, should have appeared on the website of the Budget Office. That is fueling speculation that President Buhari may have indeed retracted the document from the leadership of the NASS.
Onigneinde, who hinted that an insider sent a copy of the version of the 2016 budget presented by the President, which BudgIT published on its website, said the presidency denied that what the organization (BudgIT) has on its website was not the true version as presented to the NASS.
“We are waiting for the National Assembly to resume so that we can know the true position of the whereabouts of the 2016 budget proposal that the President presented to the lawmakers. The media also has a role to play in this because its implication on the Nigerian economy is huge. If the current government is transparent it should tell Nigerians the true position concerning the whereabouts of the document already presented to the NASS. Even the Medium Term Expenditure Framework is also not online”, he said.
He said if found to be true that the President went back to the leadership of the NASS to retract a document already presented without the knowledge of Nigerians, it is an indication of lack of preparedness of the Buhari led federal government.
“If the document has been retracted, it shows that there is still no cohesion and clear plan in terms of managing the affairs of the economy. And the timing it used in preparing the budget was too small. While the Ministers resumed work early November, the budget was presented barely a month after. The question is how much time did the Ministers have to contribute any input? That is why all these challenges are emanating. The government is not showing clear understanding of governance enough. While it is good to fight corruption, but the act of governance is more than just fighting corruption”, he told BDSUNDAY.
Chido Onumah, author of the book Nigeria is Negotiable and coordinator, African Centre for Media and Information Literacy (AFCICMIL), Nigeria, said while it may not be out rightly wrong for the President to seek to correct any noticed abnormality in the presented budget proposal, but doing so secretly is still not in the interest of transparency, which the regime preaches about.
“While we are careful not to jump to conclusion, if true, it is part of un-seriousness and unpreparedness on the part of government. Such attitude made nonsense of governance in Nigeria. If you presented this thing publicly, if there is any reason to withdraw it, I suppose that should be equally done publicly. Which means there has to be a representation”, he told BDSUNDAY in an interview.
He explained that the only reason that would have warranted such a withdrawal could have been a fundamental problem which the President probably detected after presentation, but still insists that should his assumption be correct, it exposed the government ill-preparedness.
“Even though it is expected of the NASS to hold public hearings concerning the budget, it is equally important for the executive to be open by putting the document on the websites of relevant agencies of government so that Nigerians could read it for themselves and make their inputs before it is finally approved by the NASS. It is an important aspect of the process because it will present the opportunity for Nigerians to raise critical issues in the budget. That is only how Nigerians can know if item which received a billion naira last year for instance, is receiving another billion this year”, he said.
“How can a President present a country’s budget and take it back? Why is the Senate President mute? You will recall that Nigerians started an online campaign tagged #BudgetOfYams immediately the breakdown of the 2016 budget appeared on the internet which was posted by an online organization @BudgItNg and further confirmed by the Budget Office of the Federal Government”, said Deji Adeyanju, director, New Media, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
According to him, it appears government have sneaked the budget proposal back to the villa for ‘cleansing’ and corrections after public outcry by Nigerians in what they termed a ‘budget of waste and recklessness’; a budget, he said the PDP has termed a fraud that requires a daily borrowing of N5 billion to fund for the next one year.
He said in a country where even banks are now struggling to stay afloat, business owners are being forced to close shop, foreign investors are leaving the country, and the economy almost sliding into recession, Nigeria need a president who knows the issues and not a president who does not even know the contents of the budget he read before the whole world.
“When the budget was analyzed and criticized for not being a reflection of the present economic realities, worshipers of President Buhari resorted to name calling and hurling of insults in the cyberspace. They said their god can never do any wrong, that he can never make a mistake and knew every contents of the budget, even when the president through his media chat had hinted he has no full idea about the contents of the 2016 budget,” he said.
“The question here is who wrote that budget for President Buhari and convinced him to go and read it before the National Assembly and the whole world? Can we say President Buhari is truly in-charge of this nation if indeed the 2016 budget was written without his consent and input and given to him to just go and read? Every foreign investor, business owner, stakeholders have the right to be afraid as things stand. Now that the truth is out suggesting that President Buhari withdrew the budget because he could not believe some of the contents he was told were in it during the Media Chat, are we still ‘Wailing Wailers’?
Lai Mohamed, Information and Culture Minister, who is still seen by the Nigerian public as the Publicity Secretary of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC), was not available for comments, as his cell phone indicated it was switched off when he was contacted. He had also yet to reply text message as at press time.
NATHANNIEL AKHIGBE
