The delay in signing of the 2016 Appropriation Bill into law is said to be taking its toll on government activities as many of the agencies are finding it difficult to implement their programmes. Fidelis Chidi's blog gathered that capital projects, whose contractors would have gone back to sites, remained abandoned as the first quarter of the year ended on Thursday.President Muhammadu Buhari had on Thursday said that he would carefully study the budget passed by the National Assembly before signing it.According to a
statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, Buhari had, in Washington DC, ruled out early signing of the budget.“I have to look at the bill that has been passed by the National Assembly, ministry by ministry, to be sure that what has been brought back for me to sign is in line with our original submission,” Buhari had said.But investigations by our correspondents on Friday revealed that some items that would have facilitated effective activities of the agencies had not been attended to because of the delayed budget.It was learnt that many of the ministries were having challenges getting supplies from their contractors.MDAs ration stationery, other office items .....For instance, at the ministry of finance, it was learnt that the supplies of stationery had been limited owing to what officials described “as a wait and see attitude of the suppliers.”The same situation is also being experienced in the ministry of trade and investment and that of budget and national planning.Road projects remained abandonedA top government official in one of the ministries told one of our correspondents that as a result of the budget delay, many capital projects could not be funded.According to him, many contractors handling the projects had thought that they would go back to sites within the first quarter of this year following meetings they held with the government.He, however, said that the projects, including the Kano- Maiduguri Road, which have budgetary allocations of N16bn; Abuja-Lokoja Road (N10bn), and Apapa-Oshodi Road (N5bn), remained abandoned.Other affected projects are the Sokoto-Kontagora Road project where the sum of N4bn had been allocated in the budget; Ilorin-Jebba road project N6bn; Itu-Ikot-Ekpene road project N6bn.Many of the projects were carried over from the 2015 financial year.The official said currently, only critical recurrent expenditure items that had to do with travel expenses of ministers were being met.The source said, “You will recall that this year’s budget has sparked a lot of controversies and as such nobody is certain of what will be the outcome in terms of the expenditure items that have been proposed by each MDA.“For instance, in our ministry, majority of expenses have been put on hold owing to the fact that the budget is not ready.“As we speak, stationery has not been supplied in the store because we don’t know how much would be approved for that purpose.“Also, some of the workers who did overtime have not been paid their allowance, even the running of the power generating set is being threatened because suppliers have started demanding payments.“So everything is practically on a standstill waiting for the budget.”We’ve not received a dime from govt –Construction firmsConstruction firms said they had yet to receive a dime from the N350bn which Buhari’s administration promised that it would use to revive the economy, particularly in settling part of the over N600bn debt owed contractors across the country.In March, the Federal Government announced that it would inject N350bn into the economy in order to revive the country’s economic activities, and stressed that the fund would be used to largely pay the debts owed contractors in Nigeria.But when contacted on Friday, contractors under their umbrella body – Federation of Construction Industry, told one of our correspondents that they had yet to receive a dime from the administration, despite the fact that the government owed them over N600bn.Speaking on behalf of contractors and construction firms, the President, FOCI, Mr. Solomon Ogunbusola, stated that he was not aware of any payment to any contractor or construction company with respect to the debt owed them.Asked if contractors have been receiving payments from the N350bn fund, Ogunbusola said, “I am not aware. Maybe the government wants to borrow or it is planning something else. You know me very well that if I am aware I will tell you that I’m aware.“We spoke and made it public that the debt to contractors was over N600bn and I told you clearly about it. After that, the government said we should go and bring our documentation and we did, but since that time we have not heard anything.”When probed further on why contractors had yet to mobilise to construction sites across the country, he replied, “If the money has been paid, then you don’t need to call us before we will mobilise the equipment the next morning.“You can call the ministry of finance and clarify if the ministry has given money to the construction industry. If it says yes, please ask the ministry the amount.”Officials from the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing corroborated the statements of the FOCI president, as they told one of our correspondents that the Federal Government had yet to disburse the funds to construction firms.“The funds have not been given out and I think it is because the government is taking time in making sure that the right persons or companies are captured when such payments commence,” an official who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak on the matter, said.Attempts to get comments from the Ministry of Budget and National Planning on what is being done to implement the budget as a result of the delays were not successful.The spokesperson for the Minister of Planning, Mr. James Akpandem, could not be reached for comments as calls sent to his phone did not connect.But the spokesperson for the Minister of Finance, Mr. Festus Akanbi, when contacted on the phone on the impact the delayed budget was having on the economy, declined comment. The Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, had last week assured that the Federal Government, as a sign of its commitment to stimulate the economy, would pump N350bn into the system in form of capital spending.Explaining that the Federal Government would use 2016 budget to fast-track economic diversification, the minister said efforts had been put in place to ensure that the spending on the capital projects trickled down to all Nigerians.The National Assembly had while passing the 2016 Appropriation Bill reduced the budget size from the initial N6.077trn presented to the parliament by the President on December 23, 2015, to N6.060trn, a difference of N17bn.The federal lawmakers approved the sum of N1.587trn as the capital expenditure portion of the budget and recurrent expenditure of N2.646.3trn.Nigeria has been experiencing delay in its budget process since the return to democratic rule in 1999 owing to power tussle between the executive and the legislature.For instance, the 2011 budget was passed on March 25, 2011, while that of 2012 was passed on March 14 of that same year.For the 2013 budget, it was passed by the lawmakers on December 20, 2012 and signed into law by former President Goodluck Jonathan in February 2013 while the 2014 and 2015 budgets were also signed by him in the month of May.Ordinarily, the general rule is that no amount of public fund may be spent without the approval of the National Assembly. However, an exemption to this rule is granted in Section 82 of the 1999 constitution. The section empowers the President to incur interim expenses from the Consolidated Revenue Fund to carry on the administration of government of the federation for not more than six months or until the coming into operation of the Appropriation Act, whichever is earlier.Specifically, the section reads, “If the Appropriation Bill in respect of any financial year has not been passed into law by the beginning of the financial year, the President may authorise the withdrawal of moneys from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation for the purpose of meeting expenditure necessary to carry on the services of the Government of the Federation for a period not exceeding six months until the coming into operation of the Appropriate Act, whichever is the earlier:“Provided that the withdrawal in respect of any such period shall not exceed the amount authorised to be withdrawn from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation under the provisions of the Appropriation Act passed by the National Assembly for the corresponding period in the immediately preceding financial year, being an amount proportionate to the total amount so authorised for the immediately preceding financial year.”The implication of this provision is that the amount that would be spent in the current year may not exceed the amount approved in the preceding budget.The constitution however, did not clarify whether the interim expenditure is restricted to recurrent expenditure or cover both recurrent and capital expenditure.
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