Passes 2017 Appropriation Bill
Dogara cautions against alteration
By Ezrel Tabiowo, Taiye Odewale and Joshua Egbodo, Abuja
After months of suspense, face-off and horse-trading between the executive and the legislature, the National Assembly, finally passed the 2017 Appropriation Bill Budget of N7.441 trillion, yesterday.
A major highlight of the Bill is an increase of N10billion in the National Assembly Budget, thus bringing its budget allocation to N125billion as against the N115billion originally allocated in the document.
But in line with its promise to open up its books for public scrutiny, the NASS leadership gave an item by item breakdown of its own budget.
Its N125billion budget figure is N10billion and N5billion higher than what it got in 2016 and 2015 respectively.
The breakdown of the proposed N125 billion which covers 10 critical areas of expenditures, shows that under personnel costs, a total vote of N6.714 billion was allocated for the National Assembly Management, N1.856 billion for the Senate, N4.923 billion for the House of
Representatives, N8.917 billion for legislative aides, N961.127 million for National Assembly Service Commission and N416.452million for NASS Legislative Institute.
Of the N85.878 billion appropriated as total overhead costs, the National Assembly Management got N6.193 billion, N25.111 billion for the Senate, N39.635 billion for the House of Representatives, N11.767 billion for General Services, N1.144 billion for NASS Service Commission, N1.229 billion for NASS Legislative Institute, N534.968
million for Legislative Aides, N118.970 million for Public Account Committee (PAC) in the Senate and N142.764 million for PAC in the House of Representatives.
Under capital votes, Management got N2.011 billion, N4.430 billion for the Senate, N4.493 billion for the House of Representatives, N2.727 billion for NASS Legislative Institute, N309.791 million for NASS Service Commission, N150 million for Legislative Aides and N816.928 million for General Services.
Also, in the breakdown was an item known with the executive in terms of Service Wide Votes with a vote of N391.396 million for both arms of the Assembly.
Further details of the line items, according to both the Senate President, Bukola Saraki and Speaker, House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, will be made available for public consumption in due course.
Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, and some other senators like Dino Melaye (APC, Kogi West) , in their comments before the passage of the Appropriation Bill, commended the 8th Senate and by extension the 8th National Assembly under the chairmanship of Bukola Saraki for the openness displayed by the National Assembly for the first time on its yearly budget.
Meanwhile, the 2017 appropriation bill had an increase of about N143billion.
This was even as the $42.50 oil price benchmark proposed in the budget submitted by the President was hiked to $44.50 to cater for the N143billion increase in the N7.44trillion budget.
However other parameters upon which the budget is predicated like the crude oil production projection of 2.2million barrel per day, N305 exchange rate of Naira to a US dollar and others were retained.
Major highlights of the budget passed by both chambers after consideration of reports of their Appropriation committees are N434.412billion for statutory transfers, N1.84trillion for Debt service, N2.988trillion for Recurrent expenditure) and N2.177trillion for Capital expenditure.
Others are Fiscal Deficit N2.357trillion and deficit to GDP, 2.18%.
The breakdown shows the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing having the highest capital vote of N553,713,857,113, followed by Ministry of Defence with capital vote of N139,294,920,350; Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development with a total of 103,793,201,010; Federal Ministry of Niger Delta has N34,201,500,001; Federal Ministry of Interior got 63,760,562,487; Ministry of Education, 56,720,969,147; Federal Ministry of Health, 55,609,880,120.
Other breakdown of the budget shows the State House having 20,066,000,000; Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) 32,778,490,342; Auditor General for the Federation having, 90,509, 818; Ministry of Budget and National Planning 4,092,773,627; Federal Ministry of Environment. 12,479,369,455.
Also, the Federal Ministry of Finance got 5,181,348,624; Ministry of Foreign Affairs 10,291,783,534; Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment 81,726,971,059; Federal Ministry of Information and Culture 9,546,245,04; Federal Ministry of Interior 63,760,562,487; Federal Ministry of Justice 12,705,755,001; Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment 8,803,520,400.
Federal Ministry of Mines and Steel Development 12,455,000,000; Federal Capital Territory Administration 30,397,122,87; Federal Ministry of Niger Delta 34,201,500,001; Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources 6,793,128,647; Federal Ministry of Science and Technology 41,699,655,490; Federal Ministry of Transportation 241,709,000,000; Federal Ministry of Water Resources 104,245,803,11; Federal Ministry of Women Affairs 4,250,732,000; Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing 553,713,857,113; Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development 5,441,000,000; Fiscal Responsibility Commission 148,155,391; Independent Corrupt Practices and Related Offences Commission (ICPC) 767,865,170 Infrastructure Concessionary and Regulatory Commission (ICRC) 34,310,245; Federal Ministry of Communications Technology 8,434,669,142; National Salaries, Income and Wages Commission 163,121,916; Office of the National Security Adviser 47,209,203,765; Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation 1,974,176,735.
Commenting on the budget, Speaker Dogara warned chairmen of all standing committees against altering any figure as contained in the details made available to members, without recourse to the entire House.
“It is expected that all members of standing committees must have signed their respective budget reports before they were accepted by the committee on Appropriations. No figure should therefore change. If there is any need for change, it has to come to the floor, to maintain the integrity of this government”, he stated, just after the third reading of the bill.
Earlier giving some insights into the how the Appropriation Committee arrived at the report being considered, its Chairman, Hon. Mustapha Dawaki it was guided by the primary revenue parameters approved by the National Assembly, when it considered the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP).
He explained that Appropriation Committees of the National Assembly predicated the current budget on crude oil benchmark price of $44.50, as against the $$42.50 proposed by the executive, while the crude oil production projection and the exchange were pegged at 2.2 million barrels per day, and N305 to a dollar, respectively as proposed.
“With the additional expected revenue from increase in the benchmark price of crude oil, provision has been made for…; “judgement debts N10 billion, arrears of Corps members allowances, N13.06 billion, repair of Abuja Airport runway, N5.8 billion, and increase in personnel costs of 18 MDAs, N5.1 billion”, among others.
