Some residents of Plateau have criticised the House of Assembly for considering and passing the 2018 Appropriation Bill within nine days, and described the process as “too hasty”.
The residents expressed their dissatisfaction in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), on Saturday in Jos.
NAN reports that Gov. Simon Lalong had, on Dec. 21, 2017 presented the 2018 Appropriation Bill of N145.5 billion tagged “Budget of Rescue and Consolidation,” to the House.
NAN also reports that the House, on Jan. 16, committed the bill to its Standing Committee on Finance and Appropriation for further consideration.
By committing the bill to the committee, various Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) were expected to appear before various committees of the House for scrutiny.
However, nine days after it committed the bill to the Committee on Finance and Appropriation, the House, on Thursday, Jan. 25, passed the document, increasing its size to more than N146.3 billion.
Mr Liberty Dan, a public affairs commentator, told NAN that the speed at which the budget was passed, showed that the lawmakers were “indeed a mere rubber stamp” to the executive arm.
“The law makers did not take time to scrutinise the details of the budget. They were just in a hurry to pass everything because they are used to dancing to the whims and caprices of the executive arm,” he fumed.
He accused the lawmakers of presenting themselves as a “mere tool” that the executive arm could manipulate and dictate to.
Dan said that nine days were not enough for a legislative arm to consider details of a state budget.
“Lawmakers that have the interest of the people at heart cannot pass a budget inside nine days because it is a very sensitive document.
“From our findings, the MDAs defended their budgets before the various standing committees of the House within just three days; this is an exercise that usually takes two to three weeks, because of its importance. So, I wonder what they did in just three days.
“If our legislators are serious people, I expect them to question the N6.5 billion the governor budgeted for the local government elections slated for February.
“If local government elections will gulp such huge amount of money, how much will a national election consume?
“Unfortunately, our representatives saw nothing wrong with that and even went ahead to pass the entire budget.’’
Similarly, a legal practitioner, Mr Jol Maren, criticised the lawmakers’ decision to raise the size of the budget, describing it as a display of “selfish interest.”
NAN recalls that Mr Henry Yunkwap, the House Majority Leader, had explained that the increment would cover various constituency projects for the 24 members of the Assembly.
But Maren, while faulting that explanation, said that such increment was not necessary “in the face of general outcry over lean resources”.
“The increment was needless because some of the projects had been captured in the budget.
“This government complains of scarce resources; one would have expected the legislators to cut down the budget proposal and focus solely on key areas of needs, but they raised it in the name of constituency projects. This is sad.”
Efforts to get reaction from the House was futile as none of the members contacted was ready to comment on the matter. (NAN)
