The National Assembly on Thursday rejected the proposal by the federal
government to cut their annual budget of N150 billion to N115 billion
and instead pegged the federal legislature’s 2015 budget at N120
billion.
This fresh decision was the fallout of the report
of the conference committee of both houses of the National Assembly
which met on the benchmark for the budget on Wednesday.
The report which recommended $53 benchmark for 2015 budget, was adopted by the Senate.
A careful study of the report showed that whereas the Senate had
earlier agreed to a budget cut from N150 billion to N115 billion, the
House of Representatives on its part, rejected the decision and insisted
that the figure be raised to N120 billion.
Consequently, the
committee resolved to adopt the House of Representatives’ version which
had earlier agreed to only reduce the National Assembly budget to N120
billion.
This National Assembly’s decision is likely to put the
institution in the eyes of the storm in the near future as it is viewed
to have confirmed the perception of the vast majority of Nigerians that
the lawmakers feed fat on the nation’s treasury and will do everything
to sustain it.
Before the conference committee was constituted,
the Joint National Assembly Committee on Finance had had an
understanding with the federal government to peg the oil benchmark at
$52 per barrel.
This resolution reportedly followed the
decision of the committee which had earlier rejected the plea by the
federal government to peg the benchmark at $55 per barrel.
But
while the Senate adopted the recommendation of $52 per barrel, the House
of Representatives in its usual act of grandstanding rejected it and
instead adopted a new benchmark of $54 per barrel. This forced the
leadership of the National Assembly to constitute a conference committee
of both houses to harmonise the differences.
When the
committee concluded its assignment on Wednesday, it neither adopted the
Senate version on the benchmark nor agreed to that of the House of
Representatives. Instead, it settled for a fresh benchmark of $53 per
barrel.
However, the conference committee adopted the Senate version on foreign
exchange which had put the rate at N190 to $1. The adoption followed
the rejection of the House version which had recommended $198 to $1 as
foreign exchange for 2015 budget. The official exchange rate is N199 to
$1.
Credit: Omololu Ogunmade/ThisDay
No comments:
Post a Comment