Jumbo Pay Saga: CBN, NNPC, 29 Others Hide Budgets

Posted by admin General Politics, National Politics Sunday, December 19th, 2010

BENEATH the standing ovation and backslapping that took place last Wednesday, at the joint sitting of the National Assembly (NASS), as President Goodluck Jonathan presented the 2011 Appropriation Bill, was audible humming by senators and members of the House of Representatives.
And if the air around the presentation is properly interpreted, and the snippets issuing from the hallowed chambers of NASS are any guide, it may take quite some time for the budget to be passed, and signed into law.
The Guardian gathered that the lawmakers are livid over the recent face-off with the Governor of the Central Bank, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi over their alleged extra-large pay. They see the Sanusi bombshell as the handiwork of the executive, which has reportedly refused to implement the content of the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) 2007, as regards submission of budget estimates of government and its agency to the National Assembly for vetting.
The lawmakers are particularly pained that many of 31 corporations, agencies and government-owned companies singling consume far more overheads than the NASS. These bodies include:
• Nigeria National Petroleum Corporations • Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation • Bureau of Public Enterprises • National agency for Science and engineering Infrastructure • Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund • Corporate Affairs Commission • National Clearing and Forwarding Agency • Nigeria Unity Line • Nigerian Airspace Management Agency • Nigerian Shippers Council • National Maritime Authority • Raw Material Research and Development council • Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority • National Sugar Development Council • Nigerian Postal Service • Nigerian Ports Authority • Federal Airport authority of Nigeria • Nigeria Mining Corporation • Nigeria Re-insurance • Nigerdock Nigeria Plc • Securities and Exchange Commission • National Insurance Corporation of Nigeria • Nigeria Re-insurance Corporation • Nigerian Telecommunication • National Automotive Council • Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation • National Communication Commission • National Agency for Food & Drug Administration & Control • Nigerian Customs Service • Federal Inland Revenue Service • Central Bank of Nigeria.
It was gathered that government had never included the budget estimates of these organs in the Appropriation Bills to the National Assembly for scrutiny. And for this perennial failure, the National Assembly recently passed a resolution, indicating that it would not pass the 2011 Budget without the estimates of the said corporations, agencies and government-owned companies.
And before the current debate over alleged jumbo pay escalated, the NASS members had placed serious demand on the executive, requesting that it must attach the budgets of the 31 corporations, agencies and government-owned companies to the 2011 Appropriation Bill, as stipulated by the Fiscal Responsibility Act.
Which, perhaps, explains why the NASS members shouted blue murder when Sanusi took them to the cleaners over alleged over-sized pay.
According to the Chairman, House Committee on Finance, John Owan-Enoh, the CBN governor’s utterances were deliberate.
“We see the motive behind the CBN governor’s pronouncement as a deliberate attempt to divert attention away from the issue of the executive’s non-compliance with section 21 of FRA 2007 since it is coming on the heels of a recent resolution passed by the House of Representatives, giving notice that it would not consider the 2011 budget proposals of the Federal Government if the finance minister failed to comply with the section 21 of the FRA,” Owan-Enoh said.

STILL, expectedly last Wednesday, the two heads of the NASS, Senate President, David Mark and House of Representatives Speaker, Dimeji Bankole, told the president that the N4.22 trillion Appropriation Bill would be treated appropriately.
But while Mark decried poor budget implementation and disproportionate ratio of recurrent and overhead expenditure to capital expenditure; Bankole told the president that the National Assembly expected the executive arm of government to comply with the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which dictates that yearly budgets of all federal agencies be submitted to the National Assembly together with the national budget.
As a NASS source revealed, “Mallam Sanusi touched a raw nerve when he accused us (NASS members) of indulging on overhead expenditures.”
The CBN governor had said, in the course of the convocation lecture at the Igbinedion University, Okada, Edo State, that the NASS takes 25 per cent of the country’s total overhead costs in the budget. While he put the total overhead costs of the Federal Government in 2010 at N536.27 billion, he stated that the overhead cost of the NASS in 2010 was N136.26 billion, representing 25.4 percent of the government’s total overhead costs.
This statement, which was not included in the 35-page lecture, attracted the attention of the media with newspaper houses coming out with diverse headlines most of which adversely affected the NASS.
The underlying meaning expressed in the different reports from the media is that the alleged jumbo pay of the NASS members was undermining the country’s growth prospects. Indeed, most media reports of the Sanusi convocation lecture concluded or implied that the presumed high percentage share of the NASS overheads in total Federal Government overheads were to blame for the country’s lack of development.

HOWEVER, the NASS vehemently and violently disagreed. Although it agreed that the amount of N136 billion allotted to it was correct, the alleged 25 percent of the overheads of the Federal Government expenditure were way off mark.
The leadership of the House of Representatives, led by Minoritywp_posts