President Muhammadu Buhari abandoned the much touted zero budget after it was discovered that what was sent to the National Assembly was clearly not just a badly put together document but one that embarrasses the Presidency.
Zero-based budgeting requires that the budget request be re-evaluated thoroughly, starting from the zero-base; this involves preparation of a fresh budget every year without reference to the past. This process is independent of whether the total budget or specific line items are increasing or decreasing.
Also, the idea of a ‘Zero-Based Budgeting – ZBB’ is such that all expenses must be justified for each new period. Zero-based budgeting starts from a “zero base” and every function within an organization is analyzed for its needs and costs.
The said zero budget that was expected to provide a breakdown of all expenditures, from beverage’s to stationeries according to a Presidency source who confided on NewsWireNGR, he stated that the 2016 budget early submitted was poorly put as all government MDA’s hurriedly sketched the document.
To avoid the embarrassment that was to come at the National assembly, after submitting the budget before the joint session of the national assembly late last year, the Presidency decided to withdraw the document and opted for the Ex-President Goodluck Jonathan’s system of budgeting.
When NewsWireNGR asked our source what he means by Jonathan’s system of budgeting, he said, “The President’s earlier zero budgeting was basically to have a breakdown of what all agencies needed but Jonathan’s approach is simply calling a ministry and writing down say 10 billion to be appropriated and telling the minister to share with his agencies.
“We weren’t exactly shocked that the Presidency withdrew the budget, it was what was done in a hurry, so in essence it was badly done, we spent the weekend at Chelsea hotel and rushed the work, there was really no time to put together an internationally accepted budget; time is needed to put together such an important document” Our source said.
Our source continued, “Basically what the Presidency has done now is to withdraw that terribly put together document and did a verbatim from Jonathan’s all we did was correct the figures and submitted to the National assembly and that of course was done with the President’s approval”.
For instance, it was noticed that the fresh N3.9 billion was included for routine maintenance of the presidential villa, while the amount stipulated for the purchase of BMW salon cars was reduced from N3.6 billion to N340 million.
Meanwhile, the Former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Charles Soludo has stated that the 2016 budget presented by President Muhammadu Buhari was almost the same as the one presented by his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan.
According to Soludo, the present budget was a carbon copy of the one by Jonathan’s government, adding that defeating old bad ideas could be better that initiating new ones.
He said this while speaking at the 13th Daily Trust Dialogue in Abuja on Thursday.
“The present budget is more of the same to the previous ones. Mr. Vice President [Prof. Yemi Osinbajo], If you scale your budget on the scale of GDP, it is almost the same with the previous government.
“It has a historic 37% deficit as we never had it before. The truth is that you are borrowing 37% with only 30 per cent on capital project,” Prof. Soludo stressed.
Controversies over the 2016 budget may have just begun, with a fresh N3.9 billion injected into the second version of the budget presented by Ita Enang, special adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on national assembly matters (senate).
On December 22, 2015, the president had presented the appropriation bill before a joint session of the national assembly, and was well received as an expansionary budget aimed at stimulating the economy.
On Tuesday, it was discovered that the budget was missing at the senate, and there have been speculations that it was withdrawn for correction.
The presidency had refuted reports that President Muhammadu Buhari has a hand in the missing 2016 budget at the national assembly.
In a message Garba Shehu, presidential spokesman, said many copies of the budget had been made available to the national assembly; countering reports that the document was missing.
He was responding to reports of the disappearance of the 2016 budget presented to the national assembly on December 22, 2015 by President Muhammadu buhari. “Nobody except the president can withdraw the budget. As far as we know, he hasn’t done that,” he said.
“The copies in their hundreds have been delivered to both chambers of the national assembly.
By tradition, once the budget is submitted, it ceases to be our property. “Enquiries as to where it is should be directed to the appropriate quarters.”
Below is a screenshot below, showing that Garba Shehu actually lied, as it shows the changes made to the 2016 budget:
Senate President, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki, Thursday, announced that the Senate will only accept the version of the 2016 Appropriation Bill that was presented by President Muhammadu Buhari, at the Tuesday, December 22nd, 2015 Joint Session of the National Assembly.
Saraki made this statement after the Senate ad hoc committee setup to investigate the claims of the 2016 budget being misplaced delivered its report at the Senate plenary.
In their report, the investigative committee revealed that the Senate have in its possession two versions of the 2016 Appropriation Bill – one from the President, and another from the Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate).
The Senate President revealed that consideration of the 2016 Appropriation Bill would commence on Tuesday January 19th and further stated that if the Presidency wants to amend the initial version of the bill that was submitted to the National Assembly, there were proper legislative channels to do so.
Sources say the President of the senate is being pressured to accept the doctored budget from the Presidency, the Nigeria’s budget was hurriedly put together by the Executive to allow for Presentation before the end of 2015..
