It’s early to determine 2014 budget’s fate —Reps

    
Members of the House of Representatives have said that it is too early to decide whether or not they will reject the 2014 budget and return it to President Goodluck Jonathan for possible amendment.

Apart from the lawmakers of the All Progressives Congress, who have resolved not to support the budget on the directive of their national leaders, some non-APC members have also kicked against it.

For example, some members, including Peoples Democratic Party lawmakers, have complained that over 72 per cent of the N4.6tn budget is allocated to recurrent expenditure, leaving “a paltry 28 per cent” for capital projects.

Findings indicated that some lawmakers were also not comfortable with the $77.5 set as the crude oil benchmark in the budget proposals, raising fears that the House might return the budget to Jonathan for possible amendment.

The House has fixed Tuesday (tomorrow) to begin the debate on the general principles of the budget.

But other members observed that much as lawmakers were free to hold personal views on the budget, it was too early to say that the House would return a budget that was yet to be debated.

Chairman, House Committee on Works, Mr. Ogbuefi Ozomgachi, a PDP lawmaker from Enugu State, told The PUNCH that the budget was in its early stage “where we are essentially going to look at the general principles; what it wants to achieve, the general direction in terms of focus on job creation and all that.”

Ozomgachi added that it was at the committee stage that analyses would be done on allocations to various sectors to determine whether the budget would be implementable or not.

“We are not yet in the committee stage; we have to get there first, rather than commenting prematurely,” he added.

Another member from Plateau State, Mr. Bitrus Kaze, did not rule out the possibility of calling for amendments to the budget.

“The budget came late to us and we will not just rubber-stamp it. However, amendments must conform to our laws and must not seek to please sectional or regional interests,” Kaze stated.

On whether the budget might be returned to Jonathan, the lawmaker replied that there was no case in recent history where the House returned the budget to the President.

He recalled that it was actually the Executive that would return the budget after the National Assembly had done the necessary adjustments to it and passed it.

Kaze recalled the case of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, who returned the budget in 2009 with amendments after the  National Assembly had passed it.

He also noted that in 2013, Jonathan proposed amendments to the budget after it left the National Assembly.

“So, the speculation that the House will return the budget is hasty at this stage,” he added.

Meanwhile, the Deputy Senate Minority Whip, Senator Hosea Agboola, has advised the leadership of the upper chamber of the National Assembly to suspend further debate on the floor of the Senate in order to allow the relevant committees to start work on the document without further delay.

Agboola, who is representing Oyo North Senatorial District, said the suspension of the budget  debate  would prevent contributors on the floor from politicising  the exercise and prolonging the process of its passage.

He noted that the early passage of the 2014 budget was critical to national development.

“If we are all clamouring for job creation, improved welfare for the people and infrastructure, it will then be sheer hypocrisy to frustrate the passage of the budget that can make all these happen,” the senator said.

Copyright PUNCH.