Delay in 2012 budget: Senators express fear over implementation

Non-presentation of the 2012budget proposal by the executive as of mid-December is unsettling the upper legislative chamber of the National Assembly raising doubt that the full implementation might be in doubt.The senators expressed their doubts about the performance of the budget yet to be passed by the National Assembly during an oversight tour of Nigeria Extractive Industries and Transparency Initiatives (NEITI).The senators, led by the chairman, Senate Committee on Federal Character and Inter-Governmental Affairs, Senator Dahiru Awaisu Kuta, asked Nigerians to hold the Federal Government responsible if the 2012 budget failed.According to him, 'by September 2011, the budget for 2012 is supposed to be in the National Assembly. But up till now, we have not been able to get it. And if it should come now, we are going to look at it till 2012 maybe January or February before the National Assembly will then pass it. How then can the budget work''We talk about less 50 per cent implementation of our budget all the time, this is the problem. But the masses will be looking at us. The problem is not with the National Assembly. The problem is with the Presidency and the executive. The budget has always been below 50 per cent implementation because we do not get it on time and the monies approved are always not released to ministries, departments and agencies on time.'The Executive Secretary of NEITI, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, told the committee that the agency recovered N225 billion from taxes, royalties and levies from the oil sector between 2004 and 2008.She, however, said the agency was unable to carry out audit of oil sector and solid minerals in the last three years.Ahmed informed that, 'we were able to block all institutional leakages in technical and financial areas of the industry. It has helped us to recover $1 billion for the Federal Government and it was paid into the consolidated account of the federation.
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