The Senate on Thursday passed a motion directing the Minister of State for Finance, Dr. Yerima Ngama, to appear before it and update members about the performance of the 2013 budget implementation.
The minister would also be expected to confirm to the senators, a statement credited to him by a national newspaper where he was quoted to have declared that the budget of the current fiscal year was not implementable.
The minister would also be expected to confirm to the senators, a statement credited to him by a national newspaper where he was quoted to have declared that the budget of the current fiscal year was not implementable.
The Senate also said the minister, who must appear before it within the next two weeks, would be expected to disclose causes of the fallen revenues if any.
The decision followed a motion moved by the Deputy Senate Leader, Senator Abdul Ningi, on the alleged overbloated revenue estimates in the 2013 budget as reportedly alleged by the minister.
Moving the motion which was also supported by 13 other senators, Ningi expressed dismay that the alleged utterances of the minister as reported in the newspapers, “were clearly targeted to blackmail the National Assembly, considering all the revenue variables are within the target expectations.”
He also noted that the minister before making his statement, did not engage in any form of communication with the leadership of the Senate.
He said, “We are concerned that such unguarded pronouncement is capable of sending serious negative signals to the Nigerian citizens and indeed, the international community.”
He explained that the National Assembly was considerate enough while treating the appropriation bill by ensuring that figures allocated were not only realistic, but also realisable.
For instance, he said the proposed benchmark per barrel of crude oil proposed by government was $75 whereas the Senate approved the current average market price of $109.
He also stated that the senate retained the N160 exchange rate to a dollar and left the oil production volume at 2.526.
He said the Federal Government proposed N1,001, 699 as Net Customs Revenue but that the senate augmented it to N1,006, 594 because the agency surpassed its projection for 2012.
Ningi added that whereas the federal government proposed a revenue of N2, 065, 493 through the Federal Inland Revenue Service, the senate approved N2,072,753.
He argued that the perceived poor implementation of the budget allegedly blamed on the senators, due to their alleged overbloated estimates by the minister was unfair because it was the ministry of finance that allegedly failed to release funds as at when due.
For instance, the senator noted that the finance ministry had only released N855,141,000,000 as against the N1, 591,657,000,000 approved by the National Assembly thereby leaving a difference of N736,466,000,000.
Reacting to his submissions, Senator James Manager, from Delta State, wondered why there was a shortfall in the revenue projection due to crude oil theft when the federal government had taken necessary action to halt the unfortunate development.
Other senators who commented on the issue condemned the alleged statement creduted to the minister, who they argued had not refuted the report which was published conspicuously on the pages of a national daily.
The President of the senate, David Mark, described the development as a wake up call because it showed that the relevant committees of the senate saddled with the task of monitoring budget implementation had not been alive to its responsibilities.
He said the Committee on NNPC should have alerted the House if there was any shortfall in the level of oil production instead of waiting till a time that a minister made a statement that seemed to have questioned the activities of the whole house.
