The budget row between President Umaru Yar’Adua and the National Assembly deepened on Monday as the House of Representatives said that it would not drop any item from the Appropriation Act.Skip to next paragraphPhoto filePresident Umaru Yar’AduaIt argued that since the Act, which Yar’Adua signed on March 10, 2009, remained a law, it must be implemented to the letter.The House, however, noted that the President had the option of approaching the Supreme Court to seek for an interpretation of the powers of the Legislature to make input in budgets under the 1999 Constitution.The Chairman of the House Committee on Rules and Business, Mr. Ita Enang, who spoke with journalists in Abuja, said that the House was not comfortable with Yar’Adua’s complaints that he could not implement the budget.He said, “The notion that we made insertions in the budget is not correct; the President brought a budget to the House and we made our own input and passed it.“The budget as it is now is an Act of parliament; if there is the need for reviews, let him make such requests through laid down procedures.“On any issue that the Executive feels the legislature has no power to appropriate, let them go to the court for interpretation.”Enang added that it had come to the notice of the House that ministers and heads of agencies and departments were implementing only the projects initiated by the Executive while abandoning those introduced by lawmakers.He reminded the Executive that the difference between democracy and military regimes was the presence of the Legislature in the former to represent the views of the people.“The House believes that we are not to act as a rubber stamp for anything that comes from the Executive; if that is the case, then we have no business being here,” he stated.For allegedly engaging in “selective” implementation of projects in the budget, Enang said that the legislature expected the Attorney-General of the Federation, Mr. Michael Aondoakaa, to prosecute the affected ministers and heads of agencies for breaching an existing law.The Chairman of the House Committee on Public Petitions, Mr. C.I.D. Maduabum, who also spoke on the crisis, observed that the powers of the Legislature on appropriation “and several others” were spelt out in Section 80 of the constitution.One of the contentious areas in the budget is said to be the N60bn voted for constituency projects by lawmakers without prior discussions with the Executive.On Wednesday, Yar’Adua wrote the House, saying that his administration might not be able to implement the N3.1tn budget passed by the National Assembly.Yar’Adua’s initial budget was N2.91tn.The President cited declining crude oil production, the crisis in the Niger Delta and the attendant implications on revenue projections as some of the challenges in the way of the 2009 budget.He argued that while on the surface, a rise in crude oil price to over $50 per barrel, appeared to be a good development for Nigeria , the reality was that production had dropped to about 1.6mbpd from the projected target of 2.5mbpd.Yar’Adua had stated that projects inserted in the budget by the National Assembly had compounded the challenges of implementation and called for a review of the budget.One of his suggestions was to vire (move funds from one project to another) money to projects his administration considered vital to the attainment of the goals of the Seven Point Agenda.But, reacting to the letter, Enang explained that the House would debate it on Tuesday (today) to “determine the status of the legislature in the budget process.”“I can assure you that we are going to stand our ground; we have an Appropriation Act, let Mr. President implement it to the letter,” he insisted.Commenting on the bills passed by the House, he disclosed that 44 had been passed and a total of 166 introduced since May 2008.He added that 55 bills were either pending at committee levels or had passed the second reading at the House, while 17 others were awaiting consideration.
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