More distortions were uncovered in the 2016 budget by the House of Representatives on Thursday, forcing the Committee on Capital Market to turn down the proposals of the Investment and Securities Tribunal.
There was a similar occurrence at the Committee on Basic Education, which turned down the budget of the National Teachers’ Institute for presenting a copy different from President Muhammadu Buhari’s version.
The Committee on Capital Market, which is chaired by Mr. Tajudeen Yusuf, discovered that the IST’s 2015 budget was simply duplicated and presented as the 2016 budget.
Yusuf added that with the increasing cases of distortions, the joint Senate/House Committees on Appropriation would have to meet with the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, and the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Victor Ndoma-Egba, to discuss on how to erase the distortions.
“We are going to hold a tripartite meeting, the Senate/House and the Ministry of Finance,” Yusuf added.
The drama started soon after the members of the committee settled down for a budget defence session with the Chairman of the tribunal, Ngozi Chianakwalam.
Members found out that the 2015 budget was merely replaced and dated as 2016.
The committee, on noticing the reproduction of the budget, quickly called off the session and directed Chianakwalam to return on another date with the 2016 budget of the tribunal.
However, the committee heaped the blame on the Ministry of Budget and National Planning for doing a shoddy preparation for this year’s budget.
Yusuf spoke more on the findings of his committee, “We expected this morning (Thursday) to take the budget defence of the IST, but we realised that the budget provision for IST in the 2016 budget proposal is just a copy, exact copy of the 2015 appropriation.
“It is word-for-word, figure-for-figure. And items that were dealt with and completed in 2015 were just repeated.”
Chianakwalam hurried out of the session, declining to comment on the development.
At a separate session, some members of the House Committee on Foreign Relations called for the scrapping of Nigeria’s non-viable embassies amid the funding challenges they faced yearly.
The lawmakers took the position after the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Jeffrey Onyeama, complained that the N49bn proposed for the entire ministry and the embassies this year was poor.
But, members replied him, saying that part of the solution might be to cut down the number of embassies.
“If we are to go by the report the ministry has submitted to this committee, only 61 of the 119 embassies are viable or generate revenue.
“Why can’t we close those that we do not need?” one member stated.
But, the Chairman of the committee, Nnena Ukeje, tried to appeal to her colleagues, explaining that opening embassies had more implications for Nigeria’s image than just revenue-generation.
At the Committee on Public Accounts, the situation was different. Members accused the Federal Government of frustrating the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation by underfunding its operations.
Some sub-heads of the office’s budget were reduced by as much as N300million.
Lawmakers said poor funding of the office would amount to weakening the anti-corruption fight.
For example, Mr. Nicholas Osai said, “The overhead budget has to be looked into; it will not enhance their efficiency.
“It is our desire to strengthen the institution and that we don’t conduct business as usual. I doubt if what they have will be able to check, for example, the Ministry of Power alone.”
The AGF, Mr. Samuel Ukura, complained that under-funding of the office over the years had continued to weaken its operations.
