The ongoing public debate over the passage of the 2017 budget has ramifications that extend far beyond the labyrinth of power at Aso Rock, and it is deserving of a commentary on this column for the myriad of its implicit financial consequences. Although the debate has been pitched as a tussle between the powers of the National Assembly and that of the Presidency, there is a more fundamental undercurrent to it: it is about the lack of a consensus over the essence of appropriation in this country.
Sadly, a large proportion of the members of the National Assembly see the budget as a national cake as opposed to it being seen as a national endeavour that it is. This inevitably encourages the introduction of parochial interests into the conception and execution of the budget and the truncation of its collective focus. Similarly, many legislators see the passage of the budget as the prime time for them to prove their relevance, and to justify their presence in the Assembly to their constituents.
The budget, after all, is the “giant cake” everyone waits for, every year, with bated breath. It is the show time for a national gladiatorial contest over who is capable of muscling in on a bigger slice. It is about who is smart enough to divert useful crumbs to whose pet project, whose region, whose hamlet and whose cheerleader. For others, still, it is the time to play the Robin Hood; time to rob Peter to pay Paul, so to speak.
All this is made possible by the habit of the Executive to subsume the collective will. With Mr. President being unwell, and away, no one has clearly articulated and defined the collective will around which the 2017 budget has been anchored; this is simply taken as a given. Some senior lawyers are now openly canvassing the intervention of the Supreme Court.
In fact, Femi Falana (SAN), the indefatigable “Senior Advocate of the Masses” (only one other person has ever merited this title; the late Gani Fawehinmi), amplified this debate with the suit he filed at the Federal High Court last year, and his pending appeal on the same suit, challenging the right of the legislators to amend the budget. While many people would applaud this move in the hope of finally putting the matter to bed, I do not think it will achieve the objective.
Besides, the hallowed Chambers of the apex court should not be dragged into the bear pit of political squabbles over who gets what, where and when. That is the stuff of modern politics, not law. We fall back too easily on the judiciary to settle political disputes in this country, although I fully understand the temptation to do so in the absence of a robust and constructive opposition.
The relevant sections of the constitution; Ss. 59, 80-89, of the 1999 constitution are self-explanatory. Sections 80 and 81 are particularly instructive. “No moneys shall be withdrawn from the Consolidated Revenue Fund or any other public fund of the Federation, except in the manner prescribed by the National Assembly” (S.80). “The President shall cause to be prepared and laid before each House of the National Assembly at any time in each financial year estimates of the revenues and expenditure of the Federation for the next following financial year” (S.81). This latter section refers to the budget estimate. These two provisions are, in fact, no different to what happens in most advanced democracies of the West, where no ritual battle over power of appropriation becomes the theatre that we make it here in Nigeria.
The phrase: “…except in the manner prescribed by the National Assembly” in Section 80 above has been seized upon by the Legislature as their Magnum Opus. To them, it provides the rationale for “padding”, and supplanting the estimates laid before them by the President. There could be nothing farther from the truth.
Any reading of the constitution along the line suggested by the legislators and their supporters would be tantamount to power to misappropriate, because it opens the floodgates for unsolicited demands (and burden) on the expenditure of the Executive by the legislators. By way of analogy, Ss. 147 and 171 of the same constitution empower the President to submit ministerial/ambassadorial nominees for vetting and “screening”by the Senate.
Just imagine a scenario whereby the list submitted by the President was returned with additional names added, names of certain individuals having been swapped, ambassadorial nominees of some countries having been swapped for other countries, and the Senate insisting it is their right to tinker with the list any which way they choose. If you can imagine the absurdity in this analogy, it should not be too difficult to understand the position of the legislators, vis-à-vis the budget.
With regard to our legislators, there is one thing the constitution has not spelt out clearly though. It is that the letter of the constitution matters as much as its spirit. Appropriation does not equal re-writing of the budget estimate. The power of appropriation allows for many things to be done to the budget by the legislators to facilitate its passage, cherry-picking is not one of them.
The ultimate lesson from all this is not only that there ought to be dialogue between departmental agencies, National Assembly committees, and cabinet ministers prior to drawing up the budget, it is also that the party in power should submit their plan for the economy to public scrutiny prior to election. If all the electorate had to mull over was the catchy but bland phrase; “change” prior to an election, as it was in 2015, it follows therefore, that, the economic priorities of the in-coming administration escaped scrutiny and the public (including the legislators) are left in complete oblivion of those priorities. Consequently, everyone feels at liberty to fill in the blank.
Above all, at the political party level, we must insist on only selecting candidates for the Presidency who have the ambition and a detailed economic plan.
With one or two exceptions, the Presidency in this country all too often, easily falls in the lap of people who have not actively sought to be president, and therefore, not actively drawn up an economic plan for the job.
Such a plan lays the foundation for a programme of government that encompasses its priority projects. It later morphs into a party manifesto, then, budgetary allocation later along the line. Budget statements to the National Assembly are thereby anchored on the governing party’s manifesto commitments, which make it harder to pull down by legislators without electoral consequences. We are not there yet, I know, but according to a Chinese adage, the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.
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