The House of Representatives on Thursday passed the 2015
budget of N4.4 trillion with an appeal to the incoming administration to submit
supplementary appropriation to boost capital allocation for development and job
creation.
Rep. John Enoh (PDP- Cross River), Chairman, House Committee
on Appropriation, said the supplementary appropriation became necessary due to
the near zero vote for capital expenditure caused by the fall in oil revenue.
He said that almost all the Ministries, Departments and
Agencies (MDAs), had zero allocation for capital projects in the 2015
appropriation.
According to him, the development was “a perfect recipe for
abandonment of ongoing projects and non-commencement of new ones. Having
adjusted the benchmark to $53 and adopted same by the conference Committee of
both the House and the Senate, we found that the proportion between recurrent
and capital was so bad. So, we plead with the Federal Government and by
extension, the incoming one, to reduce the gap between recurrent and capital by
increasing capital votes using supplementary appropriation.”
“However, the adjustment made does not make any significant
difference as the gap still remains highly visible. It is our suggestion that
Federal Government, as a matter of urgency, proposes a supplementary
appropriation that aims at boosting the capital expenditure. This will be the
basis for achieving projected development drive and job creation. So, I urge my
colleagues to support and help to pass this budget,” Enoh said.
The budget, unanimously passed by members, has N375.62
billion as statutory transfers, N953.62 billion as debts service and N2.61
trillion for non-recurrent expenditure.
More than N2trillion was allocated to MDAs. Federal
executive bodies under the Presidency were allocated N13.96 billion for their
recurrent expenditure with little or nothing as capital allocation.
the sum of N231 billion was allocated to Service-Wide Votes
among others.
The budget will be forwarded to the Senate for harmonisation
before presidential assent.
No comments :
Post a Comment