Acting President Yemi Osinbajo on Monday finally assented to the 2017 appropriation bill making it a legal spending plan for the country.
To make up for some of the discrepancies noticed in the document approved by the National Assembly, the Acting President said the executive will be returning to the legislature for an upward review of the budget by way of virement.
The Acting President also said the two arms of the government have agreed to return the budget circle to January to December and will ensure the 2018 budget is passed before year end of 2017. He noted that the 2018 budget will be presented to the National Assembly by October.
The N7.441trillion 2017 budget, christened Budget of Growth and Recovery was approved by the National Assembly on 11th May, with a raise of N143billion from N7.298trillion to N7.441trillion. The budget was finally submitted to the Presidency on the 19th of May, 2017.
There had also been reports that the leadership of the National Assembly unilaterally introduced more than 400 ‘strange projects’ into the budget before belatedly approving it last month. Some of the projects are said to be roads, health centres, recreational centres, water and electricity schemes amongst others.
In his remarks shortly after the signing of the document, Osinbajo said the final presentation and signing of the budget was considerably delayed “largely due to disagreements” about the changes introduced to the 2017 Budget proposals by the National Assembly.
According to him the Executive took the view that the changes fundamentally affected some of the government’s priority programmes and would make implementation extremely difficult and in some cases impossible.
“In sum, the engagements yielded acceptable results. The most important being that the leadership of the National Assembly has given us a commitment that the National Assembly will re-instate the budgetary allocations for all the important executive projects, such as the railway standard gauge projects, the Mambilla Power Project, the Second Niger Bridge, the Lagos – Ibadan Expressway etc. which they had reduced to fund some of the new projects they introduced.
“This re-instatement will be by way of an application for virement by the Executive which they have agreed will be expeditiously considered and approved by the National Assembly” he said adding that “It is as a result of that understanding and the outcome of our detailed engagements that we feel able to sign the 2017 Appropriations Bill into law today”.
Commending the leadership of the National Assembly for the patriotic and statesmanlike approach it adopted in engagement with the executive to resolve the issues, Osinbajo said they had jointly resolved to return the budget circle to a predictable January to December fiscal year.
“It is a particularly important development because this accords with the financial year of most private sector companies, underscoring the crucial relationship between government and the private sector.
“Therefore, on the understanding that we will be submitting the 2018 Budget to the National Assembly by October 2017, the leadership of the National Assembly has committed to working towards the passage of the 2018 Budget into law before the end of 2017” he said.
The budget which has a revenue projection of N5.08 trillion and an aggregate expenditure of N7.44 trillion also has a projected fiscal deficit of N2.36 trillion and will be financed largely by borrowing.
The Acting President also said he is confident that the 2017 Budget of Growth and Recovery will deliver will bring the country’s economy further out of the woods and deliver positive economic growth and prosperity “one that is self-sustaining and inclusive”.
Osinbajo further assured those who have expressed concern about the growing public debt that we are taking several actions to grow government revenues as well as plug revenue leakages adding that the country was still within sustainability limits. However, “we are determined, in the medium term, to reduce our reliance on borrowings to finance our expenditures” he said.
He noted that over the 2017-2020 plan period, the government will be focusing on five key execution priorities, namely: Stabilizing the macroeconomic environment; Agriculture and Food security; Energy sufficiency in power and petroleum products; Improved transportation infrastructure; and Industrialization through support for micro, small and medium-scale enterprises (MSMEs).
With the signing of the 2017 budget into law, the Federal Government will authorize the issue from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation of the total sum of N7.441,175,486,758, the Deputy Chief of Staff to the President (Office of the Vice President) Ade Ipaye said in his introductory remarks.
Of that amount N438,412,952,249 will be for statutory transfers. N1.841,345,727,206 will be for debt service. N177,416,296,707 will be for a Sinking Fund for maturing bonds. N2.987,550,3436 will be for recurrent non-debt expenditure while the sum of N2.177,866,775,867 will be for contribution to the Development Fund for capital expenditure exclusive of capital expenditure in statutory transfers for the year ending on 31st December 2017.
Senate President, Bukola Saraki Speaker of the House of Representatives Yakubu Dogara, Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, amongst other government dignitaries were at the signing event.
Elizabeth Archibong
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