Rep. John Enoh (PDP-
Cross River), Chairman, House Committee on Appropriation, said the
supplementary appropriation became needful due to the near zero vote
for capital expenditure caused by the drastic fall in oil revenue.
The budget, unanimously
passed by members, has N375.62 billion as statutory transfers, N953.62
billion as debts service and N2.61 trillion for non-recurrent
expenditure.
More than N2trillion was
allocated to MDAs.
Federal executive bodies under the Presidency were
allocated N13.96 billion for their recurrent expenditure with little or
nothing as capital allocation.
The sum of N231 billion was allocated to Service-Wide Votes among others.
The budget will be sent to the Senate before presidential assent.
According to him, this development was “a
perfect recipe for abandonment of ongoing projects and non-commencement
of new ones. Having adjusted the benchmark to $53 and adopted same by
the conference Committee of both the House and the Senate, we found that
the proportion between recurrent and capital was so bad. So, we plead
with the Federal Government and by extension, the incoming one, to
reduce the gap between recurrent and capital by increasing capital votes
using supplementary appropriation.”
“However,
the adjustment made does not make any significant difference as the gap
still remains highly visible. It is our suggestion that Federal
Government, as a matter of urgency, proposes a supplementary
appropriation that aims at boosting the capital expenditure. This will
be the basis for achieving projected development drive and job creation.
So, I urge my colleagues to support and help to pass this budget,” Enoh
said.
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