Passage of 2019 budget before elections doubtful as Reps postpone consideration indefinitely

THERE ARE STRONG INDICA TIONS that the National Assembly would be unable to

pass the 2019 budget before the general elections.

This is as the House of Representatives suspended the second reading of the 2019 Appropriation Bill initially scheduled for Thursday, indefinitely.

Yakubu Dogara, Speaker of Nigeria’s lower house had on Wednesday said the second reading of the national budget would commence on Thursday.

“I hope copies of the budget have been circulated. If copies of the budget have been circulated, we may have to start the second reading of the budget tomorrow,” Dogara had said.

Although the bill was listed on the Order Paper of Thursday for its second reading, the Speaker however stood it down as all the lawmakers had yet to get copies of the budget. He stated that the bill would not be considered until all members had copies.

Dogara said, “We will not take the debate on the second reading of the budget until all members have copies. So, we will have to fix a new date.”

As the lawmakers plan to work on the budget, they have yet to pass the 2019-2021 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper over two months after it was transmitted to them.

Although the law stipulates that the MTEF/FSP should be sent to the National Assembly for ratification by September of each year, President Muhammadu Buhari only sent the document to the Legislature on November 6, 2018, while he presented the 2019 budget on December 19, 2018.

The MTEF/FSP, which contains the economic assumptions with which the budget was to be prepared, was supposed to have been passed before it was presented.

In his covering letter attached to the MTEF/FSP proposal, Buhari, who stated the necessity of passing it before budget presentation, had urged the National Assembly to ensure speedy passage of the document.

The Federal Executive Council had earlier in October approved the 2019-2021 MTEF/FSP, which proposed N8.73tn for the 2019 budget, N400bn lower than that of the current fiscal year.

The Federal Government had also pegged the price of crude oil for the 2019 budget at $60 per barrel, the exchange rate at N305 per United States dollar, and daily crude oil production at 2.3 million barrels per day.

Prior to now, some lawmakers had expressed doubt that the NASS would be able to start and complete work on the national budget before general elections.

A member of the Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Abdulfatai Buhari, had said it might be difficult to pass the budget before the elections.

“When we resume in January 16, the President of the Senate will send the budget proposal to our committee. He said, “By that time the election will be getting closer and there would be discussions on the general principles of the document which could take up to two weeks. That means that we would have only two weeks to go.”

“What I can guarantee is that we will conclude discussions on the general principles between the period of our resumption and the elections.”

The Chairman Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Debts, Senator Shehu Sani, also said passing the budget before the elections would be a difficult task.

He said, “By the time we resume, it would be exactly one month to the general elections. Every committee will invite the heads of agencies under their oversight responsibilities to make submissions.

“We cannot achieve that because many of us will be campaigning.