ABUJA: National Assembly Postpones N500bn Intervention Fund To 2017 Fiscal Year

THE National Assembly has resolved to suspend the implementation of the N500bn Special Intervention Fund aimed at paying stipends to vulnerable Nigerians, provision of a course meal to pupils in the primary schools, as well as supporting market women with business capitals among others.

This was resolved on Thursday during a joint session of the Senate and the House of the Representatives Committee on Appropriation with the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun and top officials of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in view of fine tuning the 2016 Budget ahead of its passage on March 17.

However, the Committee applauded the federal government over the initiative adding that albeit the Special Intervention Fund was objective and thoughtfully desirable, nonetheless, its implementation will pose problems as there are no laid down criteria for the implementation in such a way that the target beneficiary would feel the impact at the end of the day.

Following this development, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Mohammed Danjuma Goje (APC) moved for the suspension of the programme in this year’s budget arguing that with the March 17 deadline already given by the National Assembly for the passage of the 2016 Appropriation Budget, invariably, the Special Intervention Fund not being well captioned in the Budget cannot be considered in the budget.

According to him, the Special Intervention Fund should be detailed on how to dispose the fund adequately and the criteria to adopt in the selection process adding that if there are no stipulated guidelines, the fund would be subjected to a political fund earmarked for some privileged citizens rather than the specific class it is meant for.  

Goje also who noted that market women were listed as part of those who would benefit from the fund but brought to the notice of the House that in his home state of Gombe, there are no market women but market men, and therefore wondered how the fund could be equitably shared without doing more harm than good to the society.

Similarly, he raised some issues on the proposed school feeding programme of the federal government stating that the scheme would gulp billions of naira on implementation but sadly noted that most of the pupils targeted study under trees due to lack of classrooms and even books. He therefore advocated that the federal government should take more time review the initiatives for implementation in 2017 fiscal year.

Another salient issue raised at the meeting by the lawmakers was the contention among the Civil Society Organisations on about N668 billion frivolous provisions in the 2016 Appropriation Budget.

Reacting, the Minister of budget and National Planning said he would present the submission to the federal government for consideration but added that the Special Intervention initiates were political promises which form integral part of the administrations contract with the people, and therefore should be painstakingly considered in the interest of the electorates.

Speaking on the budget, Udoma who said only established recovered funds could be put in the budget insisted that the template of the 2016 budget is zero budgeting, noting that the implementation of the budget could pose some difficulties in view of the falling oil price in the international market.

On funding the budget, the minister said the government hitherto planned to borrow N1.8 trillion half of which would be foreign loan but with the reality on ground, being forced to look inward towards raising funds to implement the budget.

Udoma also stated that despite the undeniable fall of the oil prices, the government is expecting more revenue from non oil sector of the economy including broadening the tax base adding that oil benchmark will still be retained at $38 per barrel.

 He said that the personnel cost component of the budget is another major challenge for the government.

Corroboratively, the Minister of Finance, Mrs Adeosun also explained on the funding of the budget stating that the federal government intends to improve on independently-generated revenue (IGR) adding that the government has embarked on notable cutting of cost of governance as a mechanism towards funding the budget.  In addition, she stated that the thought the government has no plans to retrench its workers, however, it would not hesitate to prudently get rid of ghost workers in his payroll which she stated would be a routine exercise.