No division in Senate over budget debate – Spokesperson

The Senate has denied insinuations of division among senators along party lines as members of the upper chamber on Wednesday commenced debate on the 2020 budget.

Recall that President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday presented a N10.33 trillion appropriation bill for the 2020 fiscal year to a joint session of the Senate and House of Representatives.

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The Senate on Wednesday subsequently commenced the consideration of a bill for an Act to authorise the issue from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation the total sum of N10,330,416,607,347 only of which N556,700,827,235 only is for statutory transfers, N2,748,598,930,000 only is for debt service, N4,880,309,549,778 only for recurrent (non-debt ) expenditure, while sum of N2,144,807,300,334 only is for contribution to the development fund for capital expenditure for the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2020.

The chairman Senate Committee on Media and Publicity, Senator Adedayo Adeyeye, who made the clarification on Wednesday while briefing the press, said every contributions made on the opening day were very reasonable.

For the Senate to have a meaningful analysis and passage of the budget, he said there must be a cross fertilisation of ideas and robust discussion.

On the assumption that some senators in their contributions were very critical of the budget, Adeyeye said “criticism is welcome in a democracy”.

Adeyeye, who was emphatic on the comment made by the Senate Minority Leader, Enyinnaya Abaribe, said the leader of the opposition is entitled to his opinion.

On a lighter note, he said “anyway, he is doing his job as minority leader. He must at least have something to criticise”.

The Senate spokesperson said the executive has been able to toe the line of the 9th Assembly to return the nation back to the January to December budget cycle and has done well in presenting a budget meant to further alleviate the suffering of more Nigerians.

Defending the budget, Adeyeye said the appropriation bill should not be condemned partly because of the rising deficit and debt servicing.

He said any nation that could not service her debt is running an unsustainable economy and such nation will be blacklisted.

“Having money to service debt is an indication that Nigeria is credit worthy and capable of handling her debt obligations”.

However, Adeyeye said government should make effort to reduce the quantum of debt and increase revenue generation.

He added that budget defence by Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government will commence on Wednesday, October 17 and close on October 29.

Earlier at plenary, senators gave different perceptions of the fiscal document and how they think it can affect the nation and her people.

The leader of the Senate, Yahaya Abdullahi noted that the budget size fell short of the projected revenue of N8.155 trillion, while he frowned at the lower rate of economic growth compared to that of population growth.

The senate leader said: “You could see the kind of programme that we have and the major problem that we have is that the economy is very short of revenue. We have an economy with a GDP of about N140 trillion out of which we can only get about 10 per cent or less.

“Now when you look at the budget and the GDP ratio, it is very low.

“The total Federal Government revenue is at N8.155 trillion. If you add the deficit, the budget comes to about N10.7 tilliorn.

“The capital budget to GDP ratio is too small. It is just 2 per cent of the GDP. This is a very low figure indeed. And when we look at as an issue of investment it is a mere drop in the ocean. Therefore, incapable of stimulating the economy to a higher growth trajectory. That has been the problem of the national economy for more than 30 years.

“We have been tethering on the edge, any small disturbance either in the domestic or international scene will bring economic crash.

“When we realise the need to diversify the economy away from oil we also refused to accept the fact that we have to change our approach to revenue generation and even approach to budgeting”.

“The major problem with our economy is that our economic growth rate is about 2.93 per cent and the population is growing at about 2.6 per cent, therefore you can see from this that we are only marginally above the growth rate of the population.

“This is a very low performance for an economy of this size.

“The projection on oil production averaging on 2.18mbpd in the medium term are subject to very high risks that are of very may have devastating consequences in a recent time.

“Volatility in the oil market and in the Niger Delta are factors that make these projections only tentative”.

Corroborating Yahaya, the minority leader, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, said the budget is not sustainable and nothing but a budget of taxation.

Abaribe said: “Let me thank the leader for making my job very easy. I counted the number of times they mentioned low in his speech 15 times, saying that everything is low. Our leader I want to draw your attention to the president’s speech because we are debating the general principles of the budget. In every budget speech, what we normally see is that they will give it a name.

“Last year it was budget of consolidation. So this year I was waiting to see what was going to be the nitty-gritty of the budget and I saw that there were many things that were put and jumbled together, a budget of fiscal consolidation, investing in critical infrastructure, insentivising the private sector, enhancing and so forth. In other words, putting everything together like that reminds us of what Shakespeare said, a pen full of sand and fury signify”.

But he was interjected by the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, who said “this is not a literature class, we are debating the budget. I just want to appeal to you that you should talk to us based on the budget speech”.

Speaking further, Abaribe said: “I want to suggest the name to those who wrote this that this is nothing but a budget of taxation. This is a budget that is based on taxation, it is based on 7.5% increase on VAT and several other increases.

“Following the lead of Senate leader who mentioned 15 lows. The biggest low that we have is the fact that, how would you talk about job creation when you do not invest in what would create jobs. Debt servicing as a component is higher than capital expenditure, N2 trillion for capital expenditure, N2.4 trillion for debt servicing.

“The projected growth as read by the President is 1.9% less than the population growth of 2.6% so if you look at it globally we are still struggling; that is why I was very happy when the senate leader said we may have to take over and redirect the economic policy of this government having seen that they have not done anything that they have failed”.

Senators Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi (APC Niger North), Barau Jubrin (APC Kano North), Ibrahim Oloriegbe (APC Kwara Central), and Adamu Aliero (APC Kebbi South) all gave kudos to the President for raising the hope of Nigerians with the 2020 budget.

While Sabi Abdullahi said the budget is on the right trajectory, he urged the Senate to be concerned with the consideration of Finance Bill attached to the budget.

Oloriegbe said allocation to the education sector is low apart from the money earmarked for the Universal Basic Education Commissioner (UBEC).

Former deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu said improvement in revenue generation should not lead to increase in suffering of the people.

Rather, he asked government to block all leakages in civil service, oil and gas while he expected government to lay more emphasis on solid mineral development, stamp duty collection among others.

Contributions by other senators are expected to continue today.