Senate President David Mark yesterday warned President Goodluck Jonathan against seeing the National Assembly as "a mere mechanical rubber-stamp that must robotically pass budget estimates as presented."
Mark, in his opening remarks at the presentation of the 2013 budget estimates by Jonathan to a joint session of the National Assembly yesterday, insisted that the parliament would continue to make input to Appropriation Bills as constitutionally provided. He said: "As to whether the National Assembly has the power to make inputs to Appropriation Bills laid before it, our stand is that the parliament is constitutionally empowered to make inputs. What the constitution enjoins Mr. President to lay before the National Assembly are mere estimates, not immutable figures. And once the estimates are so laid, their consideration becomes subject to the constitutionally prescribed modes of exercising legislative power. Therefore, we do not think that the Constitution intended to turn the National Assembly into a mere mechanical rubber-stamp that must robotically pass budget estimates as presented."
Mark, who said the full benefits of the current administration's economic policies would not be accomplished so long as national budgets are partially implemented, urged the Federal Government to target projects that are realistically attainable with defined mechanisms for implementation and easy monitoring rather than incorporating every conceivable project including those that local governments are better positioned to execute.
He said the nation's economy must be made to conform to global best practices, especially the private sector-driven one, stressing the need to make the 2013 budget "appropriately regulates the compass of the national economy and confronts our various economic, political and social challenges."
Daily Trust