Jonathan to sack indicted heads of parastatals for budgets lobbying

Posted by admin Goodluck Jonathan (2010-present), Presidency Friday, April 13th, 2012

President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday said he was going to use as scapegoats heads of parastatals that have been indicted by security report for lobbying the National Assembly to have their budgets increased, blaming them for failed budget implementations in the past. Jonathan dropped the bombshell after signing the 2012 Appropriation Bill into law at his conference room in the Presidential villa.

Flanked by representative of Senate President, Senator Eyinaya Abaribe, representative of Speaker, Deputy Speaker, Emeka Ihedioha, the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Attorney General of the Federation, Mohammed Adoke, and Special Adviser on National Assembly Matters, Senator Joy Emordi, the president while signing the budget, said it has an aggregate expenditure of N4.697 trillion, excluding the appropriation of N180 billion for programmes and projects encapsulated under the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Progamme (SURE-P).

He said the budget of N4.697 trillion is based on a benchmark oil price of US$72 per barrel. “This appropriation consisted of capital expenditure of N1.34 trillion and recurrent expenditure amounting to N3.357 trillion. It is a budget of fiscal consolidation, inclusive economic growth and job creation”.

President Jonathan recalled that he presented the 2012 budget proposal with a total expenditure of N4.749 trillion based on a benchmark oil price of US$70 per barrel to the National Assembly for appropriation on December 13, 2011. “A total of N1.32 trillion was proposed for capital expenditure while N3.429 trillion was for recurrent expenditure. The initial 2012 budget proposal assumed full deregulation of the downstream petroleum sector. However, after listening to the voice of Nigerians, we opted for partial subsidy removal. This meant that we had to review the budget’s revenue and expenditure projections in order to make some provision amounting to N888 billion in the budget.”

The President blamed the late submission of the 2012 budget on the transmission of government and late appointment of ministers but assured that all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) will defend their 2013 budget proposals before him between May and June while the Ministry of Finance and the Budget Office would use July and August to fine-tune whatever has been discussed and then hopefully, he will present the budget to the National Assembly in September.
According to him, “That will also give the National Assembly enough time to look into the budget and also enough time for robust discussions between Ministry of Finance and the National Assembly so that they (Legislature) will have a clear picture of where the country wants to go because the country belongs to all of us”.
While thanking the legislature for its cooperation in passing the 2012 budget, President Jonathan pleaded with them to ignore heads of MDAs that came to lobby to have their budgets increased after much planning had been done to arrive at the figure presented to the National Assembly.

“I plead with the Legislature for further cooperation because without planning no nation, family, no individual can progress. One of the greatest problems I have noticed from the day I resumed office as vice president in 2007 till date is that Federal Government budget has not been based on proper planning. In most cases, when the budget comes out from the planning ministry and finance along the line, people distort it. Especially some heads of MDAs go to lobby the National Assembly to put figures that are not based on planning and that is why it has been very difficult for Federal Government to achieve targets.

“For 2013 budget, I have already directed the Chief of Staff that between May and June, all MDAs will defend their proposals before me, after that the Ministry of Finance and the budget office between July and August will fine-tune whatever we discussed and then of course I hope to present the budget to the National Assembly in September. That will also give the National Assembly enough time to look into the budget and also enough time for robust discussion between ministry of finance and the National Assembly so that they will have a clear picture of where the country wants to go because the country belongs to all of us.

“I will continue to plead with National Assembly that if there are heads of parastatals that come to you to lobby send them away. This year we clearly frowned at it and I am going to use some heads of parastatal corporations because I got security report on those that came to lobby for their budgets to be increased as an example. I will ask them to leave because we cannot run a country without planning, we cannot run a budget that is not based on planning.
These figures don’t just come from the blues, people sat down and compute and see how it fits into fiscal responsibility and other issues. So, we will not allow a situation where one person because of personal interest will distort the budget of a nation”.

-Sunwp_posts