By Eze Onyekpere

The National Assembly has concluded its review and approval of the 2022 federal budget as forwarded by the executive while the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), has given assent to the bill to become the 2022 Appropriation Act. However, the president appeared to have given assent in protest as he listed a number of issues which he termed “worrisome changes.” The president plans to send an amendment bill to the National Assembly very soon.

The aggregate expenditure was increased by NASS from N16.91 trillion to N17.127 trillion being an increase of N735.85bn. The executive provision made for about 10,733 projects was reduced while 6,576 new projects were introduced at the legislative consideration stage. Most of the new projects, according to the president, were for matters within the constitutional mandate of states and local governments. They were not properly conceptualised, designed or costed. The new projects were mainly “empowerment projects.” The revenue projection was increased by N609.27 billion.

This brings to the fore the unresolved question of the respective constitutional powers of the executive and legislature in matters of appropriation under the 1999 Constitution. Should the legislature simply rubber stamp executive money bills or should it simply review and engage the executive to find a common understanding? Alternatively, should the legislature make drastic reductions or increases to the budget proposal of the president. This is a question that needs to be resolved by the highest court in the land, viz, the Supreme Court. However, it appears that a reasonable solution beyond legalism to solve this perennial challenge should be about deep consultation between the executive and legislature at the budget conceptualisation stage so that before the Ministry of Finance, Budget Office and Ministries, Departments and Agencies finish their budget draft and defence, the reasonable proposals of the legislature in terms of capital projects would have been taken on board.

Starting from the new projects, which are mainly for matters within the legislative mandates of states and local governments, it is submitted that the constitution is clear on matters which should engage the NASS and what should be left for states and local governments. Any attempt by NASS to legislate on matters purely within the purview of states will be ultra vires its powers. The budget is a law and if this argument is sustainable on non-money bills, it also applies to money bills. The challenge with the legislature embarking on this course of action is that the votes will just be for capital projects which will need recurrent costs in the future for benefits to be derivable from them. There is a contradiction in the current clamour for decentralisation when pitched against building local government type projects with Federal Government money. It may be easier for the NASS to manipulate the budget process and pay for the capital component but it cannot pay for the recurrent costs of maintaining and running these projects. In many instances, if states and local governments were not properly consulted and, in the Nigerian language “carried along,” such capital projects end up as white elephant waste with no benefits derivable by communities.

The very nature of many of these legislative insertions is problematic. The word “empowerment” has been elevated to a magical status and all that needs to be done is to add “empowerment” to budgetary provisions and it acquires a new problem-solving status. Empowerment is a loose word without specificity and can only make sense in context specific situations. Specificity in allocations is imperative for the improvement of the status of the poor and vulnerable groups. This will raise and provide answers to posers such as what exactly are we targeting? Is the proposed vote the best approach to solving the problem or what alternatives exist?

Introducing a project at the legislative consideration of the budget is fraught with a lot of challenges. Projects are not just pencilled down and inserted in the Appropriation Bill. Most capital projects will require preliminary studies such as environmental impact assessment, technical designs and drawings and studies generally to ensure the suitability of the project to solve the challenge at hand. This implies that as soon as the project is appropriated as part of the budget, it is ready to be implemented once money is released. But if the implementing MDA did not have the opportunity of reviewing the project and doing the preliminary spade work, these preliminaries can only start when the money is released for full project implementation. The project is bound to suffer delays and the preliminaries may even reveal that the project is not the right intervention to deal with the challenge it was proposed for.

Increasing the proposed revenue through an increase of the benchmark price of crude oil and independent revenue should be based on empirical evidence which the executive claims has not been made available to it. However, it is always better to “err” on the side of being conservative and cautious in revenue projections and if more revenue than projected accrues, a supplementary budget will be needed before expenditure of the money accruing beyond the budget appropriation. This will still need legislative approval. Increasing the deficit by NASS in a budget that was already heavy on deficit financing may not be the best way to go. This will mean more borrowing for a heavily indebted country. The President and a super majority of NASS are from the same political party and they evidently enjoy the best of relationships. It is very surprising that they usually agree on a lot of issues but not on the budget.

In the final analysis, there is the need for a proper definition of the powers of the executive and legislature in a framework law that properly articulates the powers of the two arms in the appropriation process. The alternative is to let the Supreme Court extensively interpret and define the extent of the powers encapsulated in sections 80 and 81 of the Constitution at the federal level which will also be applicable at the state level.

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