Budget 2017: Senate says MTEF ’empty’

Hopes of early passage of the 2017 budget were dashed on Thursday as the row between the Senate and the Presidency over alleged shoddy preparation of the Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) got worse. In what appears to be a renewed frosty relationship between the Executive and the Legislature, the Senate has described the 2017 to 2019 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) as ’empty’.

To this end, the Senate declared that it would not consider the documents because it lacked all necessary materials to enable it do so. The upper chamber also expressed displeasure over the failure of the Budget and National Planning Minister, Udoma Udo Udoma to honour its invitation to explain the shortcomings  of the MTEF/FSP as well as provide draft of the 2016 to 2018 External Borrowing (Rolling) Plan.

Adopting a motion raised by the Senate Leader, Ali Ndume, the upper chamber declared that it would not consider the documents for the purpose of preparing the 2017 budget until the deficiencies were addressed.

Ndume who rose through a Point of Order to call the attention of the Senate to a report in one of the national dailies on Wednesday where Udoma was said to have blamed the National Assembly for the delay in the presentation of the budget by President Muhammadu Buhari. Recall that Udoma and his counterpart in Finance Kemi Adeosun had earlier assured that the 2017 budget would be submitted in October.

But with the submission of the MTEF/FSP on September 30th by the Presidency, thereby contravening the Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2007, Ndume insisted that the Presidency and not the National Assembly, was delaying the budget presentation.

According to him, the MTEF document upon which the budget projections and parameters are to be based is ’empty’ and efforts made so far to get Udoma to “interface with us over the document proved abortive”. He added: “We received the MTEF on 30th September instead of submitting it according to law not later than 1st of September. That is not even the problem. The problem is the content. I have a copy, I went through and the copies have been circulated. I talked to some experts.

Even in this chamber, we have people we can call experts. “If you look at this document that they called MTEF, it is empty and doesn’t contain anything. If you have nothing, how do you consider nothing?” He disclosed that he forwarded a letter to the Minister on October 19 to brief the Senate leadership on the way out on November 1 but he failed to show up.

Ndume explained that the Senate had asked the Minister to send a draft copy of the Medium-Term Development Plan upon which the 2017-2019 MTEF is founded; a comprehensive report on the implementation of the 2016 budget (as of third quarter, September 30); all fiscal rates, taxes, charges, etc., used to derive the projected revenue in the 2017-2019 MTEF; and a report on the structure/composition of the debt, funding sources, how the borrowed funds are to be spent as well as repayment plan and schedule.

In their separate contributions, Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu declared that the National Assembly is ready to receive the 2017 budget proposal anytime, even as Albert Bassey expressed regret that efforts have been to incite the public against the National Assembly.

At a press conference shortly after plenary, Senate spokesman, Abdullahi Sabi, declared that there was every reason to fear that the government contained some persons who did not want it to succeed. “We want Nigerians to understand very clearly that in carrying out our duty, we know exactly what we are expected to do, we know how to proceed, we are ready to proceed, we are ready and committed. If the 2017 budget is ready and they want to bring it, they should bring it.

But the point is clear: let us not put each other on arm’s way simply because some officers have failed to discharge their duties accordingly. “And we want to assure Nigerians that for us, we are hoping and praying that we have learnt our lessons in the last budget cycle so that this time around, there won’t be budget padding. But I’m afraid. It’s good for Nigerians to begin to look. Are we sure that this government is not padded with some people who want to frustrate it?

Maybe there is government padding also. We need to look at that,” he stated. Senate President, Bukola Saraki had during the session waded in by informing Senators that the Minister told him that he didn’t make such declaration to any reporter and that he would issue a rebuttal later.

Saraki however applauded the Leader for raising the issue, saying “All the information being requested from the Executive as regards the 2017 budget are very, very necessary for the processes to run without anybody indulging in blame game”. This is the third consecutive time in the week that the Senate is in a collision course with the Executive.

On Tuesday, the upper chamber rejected a $29.9billion external loan and on Wednesday threatened to shut down plenary if the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) fails to conclude the pending parliamentary elections in Rivers State on December 10.