SGF, budget and constituency projects
Several issues, some hilarious, some commendable and some worrisome came out of Secretary to the Government of the Federation [SGF] Mr. Babachir David Lawal’s appearance before the joint Senate Committees on Appropriation, Finance and Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions last week. Senate had summoned the SGF following a motion sponsored by Senator Matthew Urhoghide [PDP, Edo South] who cited the Daily Trust edition of June 28, this year where the SGF spoke on constituency projects. He was quoted as saying that government might find it difficult to implement constituency projects because MDAs might not find constituency projects as critical to the execution of their mandates and given the dwindling resources.
Mr. Lawal was asked to appear before the three Senate committees before the end of this week and he promptly did so. This was a very good example set by the SGF, which stands in contrast to that of Attorney General and Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami, SAN who twice shunned summons by the Senate to appear before its committees until it threatened to get the police to arrest him. A public officer should not be reluctant to appear before the National Assembly to explain any official action or statement because that is what the Constitution expects. Lawal however complained about a sentence in the invitation letter which told him not to find excuses not to appear. We fully support him in that observation. Invitation letters to top officials should be decorous and should not unduly provoke them with statements like that one.
Asked about the Daily Trust story quoting him to have said that legislators’ pet constituency projects may not be implemented this year, Lawal said the report is correct. We again commend the SGF for being truthful and not hiding behind public officers’ regular claim that they were misquoted or quoted out of context. Public officers should have the courage to own up to statements they made, even if they were mistaken, while we also urge journalists to strive for accuracy in news reporting and not to unduly sensationalise or interpret statements and end up misrepresenting them.
The next question is, why should constituency projects, which are part and parcel of a budget approved by the National Assembly and signed into law, not be implemented? Lawal said it is because of the drastic fall in government revenue, of which only 50 percent of the projected amount so far this year has been collected. He blamed activities of the Niger Delta Avengers, which at one time cut oil production from a projected 2.2 million to 800,000 barrels a day, for the dire situation. Again this is frank talk and we commend the SGF one more time for it.
Our praises for Mr. Babachir David Lawal however end there. He used poetic biblical language when he reiterated the Federal Government’s willingness to implement the 2016 budget by saying, “The body is willing but the soul is weak.” He means the other way round. Lawal then said “consequent upon this it will be difficult to implement the projects.” He said the release of funds for the execution of projects would be prioritized. “Like the legislature, the executive is answerable to the electorate. Like the legislature, members of the executive canvassed for votes. If the revenue of the government improves, the constituency projects would be implemented.”
This stance is wrong and it betrays a fundamental problem that has bedevilled budget implementation in this country over the years. Once it is signed into law, every single item in the budget is law and must be implemented. It is not the right of anyone to “prioritize” which items can be implemented and which ones can be shelved. This power that the Executive arrogates to itself makes nonsense of the National Assembly’s power to appropriate funds because the Executive pretty well does what it wants. Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriation Senator Danjuma Goje pointed this out when he said, “The budget you are implementing is a law. The fact that the president has assented to it shows that he has agreed with it, otherwise he would have returned it to us. If in the course of implementing the budget, the need to review the budget upward or downward arises, let it be. If you felt that the constituency projects should not be there, formalise it.”
Lawal and the Presidency are standing on shaky legal and moral grounds here because the Executive Branch drew up the budget and insisted that the National Assembly should not add or subtract anything. From the beginning, it was clear to all that national revenue generation for this year would amount to only about a third of N6 trillion. Nigerians were made to understand that the shortfall will come from borrowing, and that was why President Buhari went to China. If the figures somehow do not now add up, then the Presidency should undertake a wholesale review of the 2016 federal budget and ask the National Assembly to approve a scaling downwards. That is the legal and moral thing to do, not to cherry pick which items to implement and which ones to throw overboard according to its own desires.
Truly, there are many problems with the concept of MPs’ “constituency projects.” These are various infrastructural, social and other projects brought up by individual MPs which are scattered all over the budgets of ministries, departments and agencies. The biggest problem is the allegation that the MPs insist on being the contractors for these projects and many a times they pocket the funds without implementing them. We do not expect the Buhari Administration to condone this fantastically corrupt practice but we expect it to implement every single item in the approved budget. If it cannot, then it should initiate a budget amendment, not arrogate to itself the power to “prioritise” a law.