“As a responsible parliament saddled with the responsibility of appropriation as guaranteed under section 81 of the constitution, we sat down to look at how realistic this revenue profile is. You cannot spend money that you don’t have.
“So we needed to be sure of the revenue profile for us to be able to adequately and appropriately appropriate in tune with global best practice. This is what we ended up with. And I will tell you how we can about it.
“For example, the Federal Government contribution to the NDDC budget, which is statutory transfer, it is not a secret, it is always itemised in the Appropriation Act of the Federal Government for that particular fiscal year.
“For the 2019 fiscal year, the amount that was appropriated by the Federal Government signed by President Muhammadu Buhari in the budget was N100,188,900,000 as against a proposal by them (NDDC) of N128,688,000,000. Where are you going to raise the extra N28 billion from?
“You cannot manufacture money and it is budgetary indiscipline for you to overstate your revenue profile.
“Once your revenue profile is defective, appropriation becomes faulty and once appropriation becomes faulty, implementation becomes impossible.
“So as a responsible parliament, we needed to bring N128 billion down to the approved N100 billion in the 2019 Appropriation Act of government.
“Number two: they said Federal Government’s contribution – unpaid arrears – they stated it as N35 billion.
“And take a look: the budget of Nigeria is an open document. Take a look at it. You can go to: www.budgetoffice.or.ng. It’s online and look at the budgetary provision. It was a zero for unpaid arrears. Yet you stated N35 billion.
“As a responsible parliament, some of us came from a wide consulting background in the private sector and we said you cannot appropriate N35 billion that is not existing.
“So in tune with this, it means the budget revenue proposal submitted to us by NDDC was inflated unjustifiably to the tune of N63 billion.
“So for us to be able to appropriate, we called them when they came for budget defence precisely on the 10th of December, 2019: this is impossible you can’t spend money that is not yours. Money that you don’t have you don’t spend it. You can’t use what you don’t have.
“This budget will have to be reviewed to a new realistic point.
“That’s why the budget was reviewed downward to N346,388,900,000.”
REP OLUBUNMI TUNJI-OJO,
Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on NDDC
