Okonjo-Iweala to present 2015 budget today
Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister of the Economy Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala will today present the 2015 budget proposal to the House of Representatives, amidst the uncertain oil benchmark.
This is the second time the finance minister will be presenting the nation’s budget estimate to the lawmakers, at the time when the sliding global oil price forced the National Assembly to receive the estimate without the traditional passage of the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) ahead of the budget’s presentations.
Okonjo-Iweala had before the commencement of the House’s sitting met with the speaker and other principal officers of the House for about two hours. She confirmed afterwards that they discussed about the possibility of today’s budget presentation.
The government had proposed a budget expenditure of N4.817 trillion - N260 billion for the Subsidy Reinvestment Empowerment Programme (SURE-P), recurrent expenditure (personnel cost) was allocated N1.8 trillion and overheads was allocated N216.5 billion but the new proposal now stands at N102 billion representing more than 50 percent cut.
But new figures captured in the revised version of the MTEF show that the capital allocation has been reduced from N1.2 trillion to N627 billion, which is more than 50 percent reduction.
The government also pegged daily crude oil production at N2.27 million barrels per day, while kerosene subsidy is now N91 billion.
As the lawmakers resumed their sitting yesterday, Speaker Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, read four letters from President Jonathan, and asked the House to allow the minister stand in for the president in the presentation of the 2015 budget.
Jonathan told the House in one of the letters that “In consonance with the provision of Section 81 (1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 as amended, I write to request that the Honourable House grant the Honourable Minister of Finance the slot of 11:00 am on Wednesday, 17th December, 2014 to enable her lay before you the 2015 Budget Estimates.
“As you know, the first MTEF with a budget benchmark of $78 a barrel was submitted to the National Assembly on 30th September, 2014 and discussion on the MTEF and budget construction based on those estimates began with the relevant committees of the National Assembly.
“However, shortly after that first submission, oil prices began to fall precipitously leading to a revision of the oil benchmark price in the MTEF to $73 per barrel which was resubmitted to the National Assembly on 18th November, 2014.
“Following this, the decision of OPEC at their meeting in Vienna on 27th November, 2014 not to cut production to support the price led to further precipitous fall in the oil price to below $70 per barrel,” the letter stated.
“This led, one more time to another downward revision of the benchmark price to $65 per barrel and a revised MTEF which we again submitted to you on 2nd December, 2014,
“The uncertainty surrounding the global price of crude oil and its continuous fall has occasioned delays in both the submission of a final MTEF and budget estimates, and we thus request your kind consideration of both of these items together in view of our national budget calendar.”
Soon after that, Deputy House Leader Leo Ogor was asked by the speaker to move a motion for the House to suspend its rules by allowing the finance minister to lay the budget before the lower chamber.
But minority leader of the House, Femi Gbajabiamila, kicked against the minister’s pre-sentation of the budget which, he said, was setting a precedence for future excuse from executives to stay away from the important national assignment of budget presentation.
As the debate continued to fester, speaker Aminu Waziri Tambuwal intervened by interpreting the provision of the section, saying that “to my understanding, there is no provision that said the president must come and do that personally. Of cause I know there’s tradition, but we have to follow the constitution. We must not go outside the constitution to say he must come and do that himself.”