Reps defer passage of 2014 budget

    
The House of Representatives on Tuesday deferred its report on the 2014 budget till Wednesday.
The development was blamed on the absence of the Chairman, House Committee on Appropriation, Mr. John Enoh, at the day’s plenary.
Enoh was to present the report on the N4.6tn budget to the House for consideration and passage on Tuesday.
The budget had been listed on the Notice Paper for this week for ‘consideration’.
This implied that the House would have proceeded to consider the report in the Committee of the Whole, following the presentation.
However, on Tuesday’s Order Paper, only “presentation” was reflected, leaving out consideration.
But, the presentation of the report did not take place due to Enoh’s absence.
When the presiding Deputy Speaker, Mr. Emeka Ihedioha, called on the Chairman, Committee on Rules/Business, Mr. Albert Sam-Tsokwa, to explain Enoh’s absence, he simply replied that he (Enoh) was busy with “other legislative engagements.”
Thereafter, Ihedioha ruled that the report should be stood down till Wednesday.
President Goodluck Jonathan had presented the budget estimates to the National Assembly on December 18 last year.
Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, had laid the estimates to separate sessions of the Senate and the House on behalf of the President.
A disagreement over crude oil benchmark between the two chambers on the one hand and a lengthy bickering between Jonathan and the legislature over poor budget performance on the other, had delayed the presentation of the estimates for several weeks.
While the President proposed $74 as the oil benchmark, the Senate had passed $76.50.
However,  the House passed $79.
The two chambers later reconciled at $77.50.
It will be recalled that the President had twice called off his planned visit to the National Assembly to lay the estimates.
In the end, he delegated Okonjo-Iweala, after alleged security reports indicated that he might not receive a warm welcome at the National Assembly.
Tuesday’s Order Paper indicated that the Enoh committee recommended N4.642tn as total sum of the budget for approval by the House.
The paper showed that N399.687bn was recommended for ‘statutory transfers’, while N712bn was voted for debt servicing.
A total of N2.430tn was recommended for recurrent expenditure, while the capital component was captured as N1.100tn .
The House has the discretion to take both the presentation of the report and the consideration today.
However, it may take only the presentation and defer the consideration to another legislative day, possibly Thursday.