Acting President Yemi Osinbajo after signing the 2017 Appropriation Bill into law, on Tuesday in Abuja started preparatory activities for the 2018 budget based on the Federal Government’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan.
Anchored by the Ministry of Budget and
National Planning, the process is to ensure that the 2018 budget aligns
with the provisions of the ERGP and is ready for presentation to the
National Assembly by early October this year.
The acting President and the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udo
Udoma, who addressed ministers, permanent secretaries and head of
government agencies, spoke of the need to reinvigorate the budget
preparation process and ensure that the 2018 and subsequent national
budgets were ready for implementation by January of each fiscal year.
Minister said personnel budget call
circular had been issued to those concerned since April and that work
had already commenced on the 2018-2020 Medium Term Expenditure
Framework/Fiscal Strategy Paper.
Senator Udoma said that the Fiscal
Responsibility Act, 2007 prescribes certain deadlines for budget-related
activities, which the government must endeavour to comply with.
These objectives, he said, were
particularly important, adding that “delayed national budgets are
generally considered as indicative of poor public financial management,
which is not good for the image of the government.”
Tuesday’s session, he explained, was
aimed at sensitising all top government functionaries and other
stakeholders to the ERGP implementation roadmap and the critical
guidelines for the preparation of the 2018 budget.
This, he added, would help to ensure that the 2018 budget was fully aligned with the ERGP.
Osinbajo, on his part, expressed
disappointment over the inability of the National Assembly to pass the
2017 budget on time despite the fact that it was sent by the Executive
to the lawmakers in December last year.
He also faulted the insertion of new
projects into the budget by the National Assembly, noting that this had
left an unanswered question as to who was to do what when on the issue
of budget preparation.
Osinbajo said, “This last budget, the
President presented it last December. Despite the assurances that it
would be passed in by February, it was not until May. As it turned out,
we were quite disappointed that it spent a bit of time before it was
approved. And, thereafter, we had to go into negotiations with the
National Assembly in order to get it right.
“There are issues about who can do what.
Now, there are these two broad issues about who can do what. The first
report is about who can do what. When you present a budget to the
National Assembly, it is presented as a bill, an appropriation bill.
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