Beginning from today, Tuesday, April 23, 2019, the 8th National Assembly is left with 47 days to wind off, and it is running out of time as regards passage of the N8.83trillion 2019 budget .Taiye Odewale examines.
Time hitches
Having been inaugurated on the 9th of June, 2015 but since 8th and 9th June this year fall on Saturday and Sunday respectively, the remaining days for it in actual fact is 45. Will it be enough for the passage of the N8.83trillion 2019 budget?
Apparently in meeting up within the constitutionally allowed time frame for passage of any bill for assent by the president, both chambers of the National Assembly i.e, the Senate and the House of Representatives ensured that reports of their Appropriation Committees on the N8.83 trillion 2019 budget were laid last week before adjourning for the Easter break.
While the House of Representatives did this on Tuesday, April 16, 2019 and adjourned till today, Tuesday, April 23, 2019 for the Easter break, the senate ensured that the reports were laid by its appropriation committee on Wednesday, April 17, 2019 and they subsequently adjourned to Wednesday, April 24, 2019 (tomorrow) for consideration and possibly passage of the budget.
With reports on the N8.83trillion budget estimates already laid at both chambers, what will surely be done this week starting from today is for it to be listed on their Order Papers for final consideration and passage.
By parliamentary procedures and practices, after the passage of the budget this week at different times by both chambers, a confluence or harmonization committee will still be set up for the required harmonization of its provisions before transmitting it to the president for assent. This must get to his table latest by Wednesday, May 8, 2019 to give room for the required 30 days life span for such a bill on the table of the president to either be assented to or vetoed.
N10bn for Zamfara
Were it possible for the budget estimates to be considered and passed by both chambers as presented by President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday, 19th December, 2018, the harmonization committee may not have much work to do but in a situation where new budgetary proposals are being added to the original draft like the N10billion intervention fund the senate is set to appropriate for Zamfara state for rehabilitation of areas and people affected by the banditry attacks in the state, serious harmonization will have to be carried out after the passage of the budget at both chambers.
The senate resolved to inject N10billion into the budget to tackle the security problems in Zamfara state based on motion and arguments canvassed by Senator Kabiru Marafa penultimate week.
Marafa, who rose through orders 42 and 52 of the senate standing rules to move the motion, said the problem of insecurity in Zamfara state is deteriorating on weekly or even daily basis, which calls for urgent national action and from the parliament, legislative intervention.
According to him, heinous activities of different categories of mindless criminals or killers in the state like armed bandits, cattle rustlers, kidnappers etc, are creating serious humanitarian crisis in the state that must be addressed very urgently.
“Since 2011, as a result of the increasing activities of the criminals in the state, roughly estimated 11,000 males have been killed who left behind average of 22,000 widows and by extension 44,000 orphans.
“These figures are just by conservative estimates because the figures are far, far higher. The bandits, especially heavily armed kidnappers, operate with little or no resistance in Gusau, the capital of the state, making not less than 75 percent of people in Zamfara not to be sleeping in their houses.
“The situation has nothing to do with politics because my own blood sister was brutally murdered in her matrimonial home in February this year and even two of my cousins outside the state capital few weeks back”, he said.
For management of the fund, Senate urged the federal government to set up an adhoc committee to be known as Presidential Initiative on Zamfara with a 10-year lifespan for coordination of programmes aimed at addressing humanitarian crisis in the state, saying “the primary purpose of government as clearly stated in Section (1b) of the 1999 constitution as amended, is all about security and welfare of citizens. Any government that cannot make provision for these has no business in governance”.
Will the House accede?
But for such a good intension to be transformed into reality, the House will need to quickly concur with the senate on appropriation of the N10bn for Zamfara state at the confluence committee next week after the budget must have been passed by them this week.
Why it must be 8th NASS
Window of legislative work on that and in fact on the entire budget estimates, must not exceed upper Wednesday, May, 8, 2019 to give room for the 30 days life span a bill has to be on the table of the president during which it can either be assented to, or vetoed, since the life span of the current 8th National Assembly expires on the 8th of June this year, having taken off on the 9th of June, 2015.
This is so because after the expiration of the life span of 8th National Assembly, the president cannot be discussing it with the 9th National Assembly at the stage it is now.
For the 9th National Assembly to handle it if not signed into law during the life span of the 8th National Assembly, the president will have to represent it afresh to it as an executive bill with attendant dislocations in the 2019 fiscal year.
The N8.83trillion budget proposal as presented by President Buhari is anchored on key parameters such as $60 per barrel as oil price bench mark, 2.3 million barrel oil production per day and N305 exchange rate to a US dollar. Others are, 3.01 percent GDP growth rate and 9.18 percent inflation rate.
Critical components of the budget estimates are recurrent expenditure N4.038trillion, capital expenditure N2.031trillion, debt servicing N2.264trillion and N492.360billion for statutory transfers. President Buhari had on Wednesday, 19th December, 2018, presented the budget estimates for expeditious consideration by the federal lawmakers.
Presidential appeal
The president while making the presentation had appealed to the federal lawmakers at both chambers i.e, the Senate and the House of Representatives to give the Appropriation Bill expeditious consideration and passage in returning the country back to January to December yearly budgetary circle for clear cut measurement and assessment of its implementation on quarterly basis.
“It is my hope that despite our current preoccupation with political activities, we can all commit to an early passage of this budget in the larger interest of our people and the national economy, particularly in returning the yearly budget circle to January to December for clear cut assessment and evaluation of its implementation on quarterly basis”, he said.
But preparations for, and the conduct of the 2019 general elections which ended on the 9th of last month, prevented the federal lawmakers from attending to the bill until about five weeks ago which is making them to be running against time now, for its passage at both chambers, harmonization of appropriations made and transmission to the president for assent within the ambit of legislative and constitutional provisions for that.
