Budget presentation divides Reps

[SunNews]

By Iheanacho Nwosu, Abuja

But for the intervention of the Speaker, Aminu Tambuwal, the House of Representatives  yesterday, would have passed a resolution barring President Goodluck Jonathan from presenting the 2014 Appropriation to the National Assembly on Tuesday.

President Jonathan, last week, wrote to the Senate and House of Representatives, informing them of plans to present the 2014 budget estimates on November 12. However, the planned budget presentation yesterday, divided the House with some members arguing that there was no need for the budget presentation on account of alleged poor performance of the 2013 budget.

Ali Madaki  (Kano) started the budget presentation debate when he raised a point of order on the poor implementation of the 2013 budget.  He said that his point of order was to inform the chamber about the poor state of implementation of this year's budget.

The lawmaker reminded members of the chamber of the agreement they reached last year before approving the 2013 budget. According to him, the leadership of the chamber had pleaded with members to approve the budget despite the controversy over poor performance of the 2012 Appropriation and pledged that the approval of presentation of the 2014 estimates by President Jonathan would be based on the implementation of 2013 budget to a reasonable percentage.

Madaki argued that the performance of this year's budget was still 40 per cent and insisted that it was unreasonable for the President to be allowed to present  a new estimate .

He suggested that the executive should rather be compelled to offer explanation on the poor outlook of the budget performance for this year.

"This year's budget is below 40 per cent implementation. The budget must be implemented to a certain level before a new one is allowed or taken from the President," he said.

Beside that, Madaki said that the House was yet to get the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), stressing that such document was more important than the planned presentation of the 2014 budget.

The matter immediately divided the House and several All Progressive Congress (APC) members threw their weight behind Madaki.

But  Warman Ogoriba (Bayelsa PDP) stoutly opposed Madaki's submission, saying that the law empowers the President to lay a budget proposal before the National Assembly.

Meanwhile the House has criticised the President over his alleged refusal to assent to some bills passed by the  National Assembly.

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