FINANCE Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has said that the 2012 Federal Budget Proposal would be ready for presentation to the National Assembly in the first week of next month at the latest. It may therefore come six weeks earlier than the 2011 budget, which reached the legislature on December 16, 2010. Even that scheduled date is rather belated. Government should as a matter of routine forward the draft budget for a specific year to the legislature early in the third quarter of the preceding year. That gives time for its unhurried and well-considered legislative passage as well as further possible fine-tuning by the legislative and executive arms of government prior to the presidential assent. The Appropriation Act should be ready for implementation right from the first day of the year of reference.It is pertinent to note that Senate President David Mark, while inaugurating the committees of the Seventh Senate late last month, expressed dissatisfaction over the delay in presenting the 2012 budget. Indeed, under the medium term expenditure framework, any year's budget is loosely led to two or three immediately succeeding ones and the projects that remain unexecuted in a particular year are rolled over to the next. The present delay is unnecessary.In the meantime the disclosure by the minister that the Federal Ministry of Finance lacks up-to-date record of implementation of the 2011 budget is untenable. On what basis were funds released' Despite the April elections, Mr. President retained his old set of ministers until May 29, 2011, the Inauguration Day. And since the Sixth National Assembly gave way to the Seventh with a break of a few hours, the new cabinet could have been constituted faster than occurred. In effect, the execution of projects in the budget was expected to proceed unimpaired.However, due notice should be paid to the explanation by the minister that implementation of the 2011 budget was hampered by paltry provisions for ongoing projects, which made it necessary to seek transfer of funds allocated by legislators to non-existing projects to going ones. Two approaches to tackling the problem in 2012 have emerged. The Senate wishes to establish its own budget office for the purpose of ensuring smooth passage and execution of the national budget. Is it the place of the legislature to execute projects' The Senate's standpoint was an apparent rebuff because the Finance Minister had offered two weeks earlier that the Presidency would cooperate with the National Assembly so as to produce an implementable 2012 budget that would be faithfully executed.Without doubt, budgets must benefit from wide consultation among the elected representatives of the people. Clearly, the Presidency and the legislature are not meant to run parallel budgets: the existing Budget Office suffices for the three arms of one and the same government. The President, who has the entire country as his constituency, will be well served provided the craving for constituency projects by legislators is to sincerely spread federal presence across the countryThe minister also said that the level of budget implementation would improve if the 2012 budget contained projects, particularly ongoing ones that could be fully executed instead of introducing many new projects. Sadly, that essence of budgeting, to identify priority projects for execution within available resources, has been lost at great cost to the blind rivalry between the executive and legislative arms. To illustrate, last June the Presidential Projects Assessment Committee found that MDAs were executing at least 11,886 projects. That number, which presumably includes constituency projects, average 33 projects per constituency for members of the House of Representatives and 109 projects per senatorial constituency. The total cost of the projects is N7.78 trillion or N655 million per project. Meanwhile, the sum of N2.696 trillion had been paid to contractors. Being uncompleted, the projects did not deliver the intended services to any constituents across the country. The expenditure on them averages N7.5 billion per House of Representatives constituency or N24.7 billion per senatorial constituency. It represents unconscionable waste of scarce resources. Yet, by taking turns to execute the projects, the amount already sunk into them was enough to construct and commission 4,116 projects nationwide, some 11 projects per House of Representatives constituency or at least 37 projects per senatorial constituency. That approach would have allowed some elements of the population to enjoy the services derivable from the public projects.It is therefore imperative that the 2012 budget should concentrate on completing a number of the unfinished projects on the basis of priority. As many of such projects as may be covered by available resources should be executed uninterruptedly till they are commissioned. Projects selected for completion should be evenly distributed among the states in any given year. Any sitting administration irrespective of the controlling party should conclude any particular round of projects in all constituencies before embarking on a fresh set of nationwide projects. That enthrones budget continuity which all party manifestoes should respect in the national interest.Despite unending reforms in the democratic dispensation, the minister failed to mention the indispensable condition for the successful execution of the planned implementable budget. The present Father Christmas-style anticipatory release of funds from the safety of the federal treasury for jobs not yet done diverts the attention of MDAs top shots and legislators from faithful budget execution to corrupt schemes for self-enrichment. This is so because, firstly, such funds in part go out as mobilisation fees to cronies fronting as contractors. That accounts for the rampant inflation of project costs and the large incidence of abandoned or sloppily executed projects. Secondly, such funds in part are placed in colluding banks at manipulable interest rates with inbuilt kickback. This is responsible for non-diligent execution of projects for which adequate funds may have been voted, protracted delays in settling contractors for executed jobs as well as the incidence of unspent funds. Unspent capital budget funds are reluctantly returned to the treasury or disappear altogether. Thirdly, Finance Ministry officials are known to collect bribes before funds are released to MDAs. Fourthly, corruption is so ingrained that the only 16 MDAs so far scrutinised were found to be palming off N12 billion annually in personnel costs. And fifthly, upfront release of budget funds aggravates excess liquidity in the system. Thus while the economy underperforms, corrupt officials, legislators and their collaborators profit therefrom.The upfront release of budget funds should therefore be reconsidered. Recurrent expenditure should be transparently accounted for. Government should adopt sound fiscal and monetary measures that will create the conducive environment in which bona fide contractors would have cheap bank credit at their disposal for the stage-by-state execution of government capital projects and for which they should be promptly paid in line with agreed terms and conditions. The executive and legislative arms of government should cooperate, draw up implementable 2012 budget and see to its faithful and quality execution for the benefit of all.
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