Roll Over Capital Budget: 2018 Budget To Hit N10tr — Saraki

Senate President,  Bukola Saraki on Thursday disclosed that the 2018 budget will increase to N10 trillion considering the federal government plans to roll over 60 percent of capital budget in 2017.

Speaking gave the hint in his remarks after the consideration of the report of Joint Committees on Finance and Appropriations on implementation of 2017 budget. 

The Minister of Finance, Kemi  Adeosun when she apppeared  before the Joint Committed on Tuesday informed the lawmakers of federal government decision to roll over 60 percent of 2017 capital budget to 2018.

However,  Saraki while remarking on the report of the committee said that there is no any pending request for any external borrowing in the Senate. 

The Senate President said, ”  If you are  taken about 50 Percent of capital projects to next year budget it means you are talking about N10 trillion budget I hope executive is taken note. “

Saraki, stated there was no pending request for external borrowing with the chamber

He said, “Let me also clarify this because I was involved by the Chairman of Appropriations; that when the Minister of Finance came, she suggested that there were some requests before us on external borrowing.

“I just want to make it clear that there is no request on external borrowing that has not been acted upon. 

“It must be that the letters have not left the Executive to come to us.

“I think it is important that we don’t delay such an important issue.

If you remember, at the end of last session – on the last day, we treated requests from the states and those on the railways.

“There are no pending requests from Mr. President or, when he was away, from the Acting President on external loan.”

Earlier,  the Red Chamber adopted all the recommendations of the committee apart from the first recommendation which was stepped down by the lawmakers. 

The  first recommendation in the report, which read, “The committee wishes to recommend that the issue of external borrowing be resolved with the executive without further delay.”

In  the recommendations of the joint committee which was unanimously adopted , the Senate that was that if Nigeria would have a January to December budget cycle in 2018, the Federal Government must not roll over 60 per cent of capital projects in the 2017 budget as being proposed

The Committee in his report thoroughly debated  observed that the Executive had decided to focus on completion of priority projects that were near completion, instead of implementing the budget as passed.

Another observation by the panel was that efforts were being made to have the 2018 budget proposal laid before the National Assembly in

October 2017, with the hope that the National Assembly would pass it in December for implementation to commence January 2018.

Some of the other observations were that “60 per cent of the capital component of the 2017 budget may be rolled over to 2018, with the expectation that it will commence in January 2018.

“The short-fall in personnel costs of some agencies are as a result of either error in budget or unapproved employment of staff. 

“This is being investigated by the Executive with a view to addressing the problem.

“There are revenue leakages of operating surpluses that Agencies are not remitting to the Consolidated Revenue Fund.”

Meanwhile,  Senate has begun consideration on the virement request by the Federal government for consideration. 

According to Senate Leader,  Ahmad Lawan, the letter for virement was read on Tuesday 28 july 2017.

Lawan said that what the Senate is  doing now is to refer it to the appropriate committee to look into the details.

Before the virement was referred to the Appropriation committee,  it was thoroughly debated among the federal lawmakers. 

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