2018 Budget: Trouble looms as APC, PDP Reps disagree

…Lawmakers express divergent views over MTEF/ FPS
…Deputy Speaker begs colleagues to consider proposal

The House of Representatives members on Wednesday engaged in brick bats with each other when the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and the Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration was to be considered by lawmakers.

While members of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were vociferous in opposing the fiscal and monetary policies of the federal government and insisted on the policy documents not been debated, the majority ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) members maintained a stance that the House consider and debate the proposals submitted by the presidency.

Deputy Speaker of the House, Yusuf Lasun, who presided over yesterday’s plenary had to appeal to the opposition lawmakers to shift ground and allow a consideration and debate of the proposals to hold.

He implored the aggrieved PDP lawmakers that whatever misgivings they had about projections made by the executive as contained in the MTEF/FSP can be adjusted at the committee stage.
Daily Times reports that the consideration and approval of the MTEF/FSP by the National Assembly is a provision of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which is a precondition before the legislature can commence actual debate on the 2018 budget.

But delays in forwarding the MTEF/FSP documents for consideration before the formal presentation of the 2018 budget estimates by President Mohammadu Buhari irked members of the opposition who moved to block its consideration and eventual passage.

Opposition lawmakers barely allowed House Majority Leader, Rep. Femi Gbajabiamila to conclude his lead debate on the policy documents before they took turns to kick against and fault the procedure and timing for considering the two documents.

The PDP lawmakers argued that the president not only violated the provisions of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, but that the delay in debating the MTEF/FSP might have negative effects on the final budget outcome.

Rep. Betty Apiaphy (PDP/Rivers), who lead the opposition onslaught raised a point of order, arguing that it was improper to have the budget laid by the president without the lawmakers first debating and approving the MTEF/ FSP.
She declared that it is the decisions or recommendations from the considerations of the lawmakers that ought to have determined the final outcome of the 2018 budget estimates.

Sensing where the opposition lawmakers were headed, the deputy speaker appealed that the documents be debated while necessary adjustments on the assumptions made by the executive can be adjusted by the legislature when the need arises.

Other PDP House members, including Reps Dan Asuquo, Ismail Muazu, Nnenna Ukeje, Daniel Reyenieju, chorused the
sentiments expressed by Rep. Apiaphy when they made their contributions.

Rep. Reyeneiju (PDP/Delta) said that ” l am a proud member of the opposition in a progressive House of Representatives. We shouldn’t have allowed the budget to be laid because he (Buhari) violated the fiscal responsibility law.

“The best democracy is when parliament refuses to carry out illegality. We are in a progressive House and the nation must move on. Let it go, we will take your MTEF and allow you go, but in the interest of Nigerians.”
Responding, the deputy speaker said, “we are grateful to the opposition for the opportunity you have given us to debate the MTEF.”

According to the deputy speaker, some assumptions contained in the documents were unrealizable, adding however that “we met and told the executive that 2.5mbpd would not be realizable, but they told us that what is lost in volume can be compensated through price.”

Members of the ruling APC in their contributions even though they faulted some of the key assumptions contained in the MTEF/FSP, expressed hope that the budget parameters were achieved.

Reps Pategi, Pally Iriase and Kayode Oladele championed the APC position.
Earlier, in his lead debate, House Leader Femi Gbajabiamila said that Sections 11 (3) of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2007, provides that the Medium Term Expenditure Framework shall be considered for approval with such modifications, if any as the National Assembly finds appropriate by a resolution of each house of the National Assembly.

He stated also that Section 13 of the same Act provides that the MTEF shall contain among other things a macro -economic framework setting out the macro -economic projections for the next three years as well as the underlying assumptions for those projections and an evaluation and analysis of the macro -economic projections for the preceding three financial years.

He added that for instance, “in 2018, oil production is set at 2.5mbpd, 2.8mbpd in 2019 and 3.1 in 2020. For oil benchmark, $45 in 2018, $50 in 2019 and $52 in2020.”

Rep. Gbajabiamila also announced that the exchange rate remained at N305 witthin the three years while collectible revenues is projected at N 11.6trilion in 2018; N14.7trilion in 2019 and N15.2trillion in 2020.

The deputy speaker thereafter abruptly ruled that debate on the MTEF/FSP had been concluded and referred the documents to the House Committees on Finance, Appropriations, National Planning and Economic Development, Legislative Budget and Research as well as that on Loans and Debt Management to scrutinize and make appropriate recommendations to the House.

Henry Omunu, Abuja