ABUJA, Federal Republic of Nigeria. The Federal Government, on Tuesday, admitted spending N222.1 billion on fuel subsidy between January and July without the approval from the National Assembly and without its provisions in the 2015 Appropriation.
Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Finance, Mrs Anastasia Daniel-Nwaobia, represented by the Director General, Budget Office of the Federation, Mr Aliyu Gusau, made the revelation in Abuja, on Tuesday, in her presentation at the ongoing public hearing organised by the House of Representatives ad hoc committee on the non-implementation of the 2015 capital budget.
She, however, explained the Federal Government, in one of its fiscal items, made the extra-budgetary spending under “Emergency Intervention (fuel subsidy crisis),” to end the eight-month long fuel scarcity which started in December 2014 and ended in July 2015.
This came just as the committee queried the finance ministry over N600 billion it borrowed from Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to finance the payment of salaries and wages, contrary to the provisions of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which “provides that money borrowed should be used to fund only capital projects.”
The committee led by Honourable Aliyu Pategi, expressed displeasure and total dissatisfaction over the development, insisting that such extra-budgetary expenditures had been issues of concern to the parliament over the years.
According to the chairman of the committee, “appropriation is an Act, and we insist on its implementation. We want to know where there are challenges, but to spend monies such as the N222.1 billion without recourse to the parliament is not acceptable to us.”
Members of the committee, who contributed during the debate at the hearing session, frowned on various discrepancies in the presentations of the permanent secretary, Accountant General of the Federation and other agencies on the management of the nation’s economy.
Speaking on the Treasury Single Account (TSA), Pategi said “the National Assembly will consider the review of the Acts establishing some of the revenue generating agencies, so they can retain some portion of their revenue, like the Customs Service, which retains seven per cent of its revenue and remits 93 per cent to the Federation Account.”
On the loan secured from the CBN, Gusau said “this is an item under contingency funds, but it allows for room to take loans and things like that, but I am not too conversant with the details.”
He disclosed that the recent S&P rating scored Nigeria B+ due to transparency in doing business, adding that Fitch rating was being awaited.
The Deputy Governor of the CBN, Mr Sulaiman Barawu, in his presentation, explained that the Ways and Means account was approved by law as contingency for the Federal Government to borrow from to fund its deficit, up to five percent of the preceding year’s revenue.
“What JP Morgan wanted us to do is to allow uncontrolled devaluation of the currency. We think that is harmful to the economy,” he said, adding that the CBN believed the Naira was appropriately priced to the Dollar at N197/$1.
Credit: Tribune (Nigeria)
