House Summons SGF over Budget Implementation
From Onwuka Nzeshi in Abuja THISDAY | Apr.01.2009

Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Alhaji Yayale Ahmed, was yesterday summoned by the House of Representatives Committee on Legislative Compliance, over failure of the Federal Government to comply with provisions of the Fiscal Responsibility Act.

The summon followed a resolution of the House Committee that an urgent action needed to be taken to lay the necessary legal foundations for the 2010 Appropriation Bill and save the 2009 Budget from being derailed.

The Fiscal Responsibility Act was initiated by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration but signed into law by President Umaru Yar’Adua on July 30, 2007.
The law makes it obligatory on the Federal Government to spend its money in a more responsible manner and ensure that development projects to which funds had been appropriated in the annual budgets were executed on schedule.

It demands, among other things, strict implementation of the budget and periodic monitoring of same while entrenching transparency in the budget process.
The law demands that the Federal Government does not engage in frivolous borrowing and anticipatory budgeting but must ensure that its projected expenditures are equally matched by realistic revenue profile backed by a Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) over a period of three years.

Chairman, House Committee on Legislative Compliance, Honourable Daimi Akpanah , who issued the summon disclosed that more than one year after President Umar Yar' Adua signed the Fiscal Responsibility Bill into law and four months after the setting up of a Fiscal Responsibility Commission, the Federal Government had been engaged in gross abuse of the same law.

The Fiscal Responsibility Commission, Akpanah said, had very strategic roles to play in any given year as the law expects it to monitor the implementation of the national budget and monitor lodgements and withdrawals from the Excess Crude Account to ensure all transactions were in compliance with the Fiscal Responsibility Act.

He said that under the law, the Fiscal Responsibility Commission ought to present a Medium Term Expenditure framework by June, the end of the second quarter of the year. Akpanah expressed disappointment at the development. He stressed that a situation where a government decides to disregard its own law was like an act of sabotage.

According to him, the law did not make any room for discretionary compliance and therefore the Federal Government had no choice but to ensure full compliance.The House Committee observed with displeasure the rather slow pace of the government in putting in place the necessary structures for the law to thrive.

Director General, Fiscal Responsibility Commission, Alhaji Aliyu Yelwa, had earlier told the lawmakers that since his 11 member board of the Commission was screened and confirmed by the Senate last December, they were yet to assume full duties because the Federal Government was yet to inaugurate the board.

Yelwa also disclosed that the Commission was yet to acquire an office accommodation and had no funds of its own to carry out its numerous functions under the law. He admitted that though, the Commission had a budgetary provision of about N742million in the current year, it was yet to access the funds.

Director (General Services) in the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Alhaji Umaru Amburusa, had difficulties explaining the reasons for the delay in the inauguration of the board and the non-release of the funds to enable it commence operations.

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