Unpatriotic disposition to 2017 Budget oversight

I observed with grieve concern, what transpired between the House Committee on Commerce and Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment on Thursday, 14th December, 2017 where the lawmakers declined to consider the 2018 budget estimates on the ground that the Minister, Okechukwu Enelamah, was absent. My inquisitiveness rose, when I heard the Minister of State, Aisha Abubakar mentioned that only 16 percent of the capital expenditure was achieved so far. According to her, only N3.088 billion had been released to the ministry out of total sum of N19 billion appropriated for capital projects. Though the Ministry also showed an expenditure of N2,190,120,070 which is 70 percent spent so far.

For overhead, out of the sum of N701 million appropriated only N246.593 million showing 35 percent implementation level, while only N178, 953 was realized out of the N212,277,488 projected revenue for the year. With such uncomely picture painted, I was actually looking forward towards seeing the lawmakers raising issues bothering on the poor budget implementation and the abysmal 16 percent capital expenditure implemented by the Ministry for some of the lofty plans for the year. My expectation also was that the House will look at the possible solution by interfacing with the Federal Ministry on Finance on how much would be released before the end of the year from the N500 billion approved by the Presidency for capital expenditure. But to my surprise, they shut down the process, and insisting that the presence of the Minister is more important.

I was initially consoled at the opening of the meeting when the Chairman of the Committee, Sylvester Ogbagha observed that the Executive is pressing to return the country back to January-December budgeting system and the need for the cooperation of the Ministers. This was however punctured with the fireworks that led to the stepping down of the budget consideration, as he insisted that the Minister on arrival should pick a date before the Committee can consider the budget. This I simply consider as misplaced priority. At present, some cross-section of those who attended the meeting have started reading meaning to the submission of the Committee. That also lead us to the issue of building Institutions and not strong individuals. The Committees also should give priority to our Institutions rather than make it look as if they are bent on individual minister. With the Minister of State and Permanent Secretary present at the interactive session, for me, nothing should have stopped the House Committee on Commerce from postphoning the budget consideration.

I was so concerned seeing the lackadaisical attitude of virtually all the Standing Committees toward the two weeks oversight function for which the House adjourned plenary. Unfortunately, only the House Committee on Sports, Commerce publicly interfaced with the Ministries and other agencies under their purview. Worse of it all, was that the House Committee on Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) which contracted photographer to consult on the supposed oversight exercise, and later sent the scanty report to some Legislative Correspondents to publish, but was turned down. So how do you describe the thoroughness of the exercise? For me, the chairmen of these Standing Committees should be held accountable for condoling the misgivings of some of the Clerks who indulge in unhealthy practices!

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Meanwhile, I wish to commend the work done so far by the Ad-hoc Committee investigating the pump price of petroleum products, chaired by Raphael Nnana-Igbokwe (PDP-Imo). At the last investigative public hearing held on Thursday, the Committee uncovered N30 billion unremitted crude oil revenue into the Federation Account. The resolution came after thorough quizzing of the representatives of Department of petroleum Resources who presented controversial documents on crude oil lifting and distributed to the three domestic refineries: Kaduna, Port harcourt and Warri. According to the DPR records for crude oil lifted in February 2017 which showed 2,845,142 barrels transferred to the Kaduna, Port Harcourt and Warri refineries. However, the Committee discovered 3,853,647 barrels of crude oil were delivered to the three refineries, leaving excess of 1,008,505 barrels unaccounted for by DPR. Also in the month of March 2017, DPR records showed that 3,227,556 barrels were supplied to the three refineries while the record showed 2,400,297 barrels documented, showing differential of the 827,259 barrels of crude oil unaccounted for by the agency. For the month of April 2017, while DPR showed total crude oil lifted worth 2,978,371 barrels lifted, the Committee discovered that total of 4,252,368 barrels were distributed to the three refineries, leaving a differential of 1,273,997 barrels unaccounted for. The Chairman of the Committee was compelled at some point to handover some of the Chief Executives of oil companies to the Police Fraud Unit and Sergeant-at-arms to document their statements.

Kehinde Akintola