By Joshua Egbodo
Abuja
A special law in budgetary reforms is the way out of the perennial issues associated with the Nigerian budgetary process, the Director-General of the National Institute for Legislative Studies (NILS), Dr. Ladi Hamalai, has stated.
Hamalai, who dropped the hint during an interactive chat with some journalists covering the National Assembly, said unless there was a high level of connivance, it would be pretty difficult for funds meant for the implementation of National Assembly members’ constituency intervention projects to be diverted.
The DG, who conceded that the management of the annual budget, MTEF and development plans had been marred by high level of inefficiency, ineffectiveness and lack of transparency, Hamalai said, therefore, that “it is imperative at this point in time to initiate the process of introducing reforms through legislations in the budget process.”
According to her, there is the need for urgent reforms in the budgeting process as obtained in other climes.
Also speaking on the crisis in the House of Representatives, occasioned by the controversial allegation of budget padding, she noted that claims that legislators “can alter, reject or even rewrite the budget, owing largely to the powers conferred on them have been misconstrued by the members of the public.”
She said: “It is a misapprehension to maintain that the National Assembly has no power to alter budgetary estimates by the executives; it is a practice utilised when submitting a budget for approval.
“It artificially inflates the proposed budget in order to give the project room to expand or to cover unexpected costs. This practice of providing a cushion in a budget in order to avoid an unfavourable variance at the end of the budget year is also called budgetary slack.
“Whereas some contend that inflating expenses to take expected inflation into account is responsible foresight, others see it as inappropriate of even criminal.”