NASS LEGISLATORS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR DELAYED IMPLIMENTATION OF THE 2017 BUDGET, NOT THE EXECUTIVE!

Legislators of Nigeria's 8th National Assembly (NASS), are biting more than they can chew and we strongly believe that Nigerians are better off without these crowd of 469 persons who are draining the nation’s coffers through outrageous secret salaries, allowances/emoluments and are also bent on running the economy aground through perennial delays of the 2017 Budget through dubious OVERSIGHT FUNCTIONS!
According to NASS sources, the legislators unilaterally increased their annual budget from N115 billion naira in 2016 to N125 billion naira in 2017 - an increase of N10 billion naira, which clearly portrays a spirit of greed, selfishness and insincerity as overall emoluments in a period of national economic challenges when they should have at least surrendered 50% of their overall emolument to further support Capital expenditures that would trickle down to the downtrodden as positive dividends of democracy!

Not satisfied with that illegal increase, they still PADDED the Executive's total figure of N 7.28 trillion, submitted on 14th December, 2016 to N7.44 trillion which the legislators jointly passed on 11th May, 2017, and this impunity caught the ire of the Professor Osinbajo who commented as follows:
"There are two broad issue about who could do what. The first report is about who can do what. When you present a budget to the National Assembly, it is presented as a bill an appropriation bill. And secondly, do not introduce entirely new projects and all of that or modify projects. This is something that we experienced last year and this year again. It now leaves the question about who is supposed to do what" Not surprisingly, the barefaced accomplices in the 2015 NASS leadership coup de tat, Senator 'Bukola Saraki and Hon. Yakubu Dogara, have brazenly remarked that they would neither surrender their constitutional powers nor become a rubber stamp to the Executive!

In spite of the economic downturn as at May 2015 when APC came to power, due to global oil price fall, they insisted and collected wardrobe allowances, bought 469 brand new vehicles (jeeps/saloon cars), and turned deaf ears to public hues and cries! They oversight all other arms of government except themselves like the Ostrich which believes in its safety by burying its head in the sand forgetting that its entire huge body is exposed to danger!


LEGISLATORS SHED CROCODILE TEARS OVER THE "2017 BUDGET OF ECONOMIC RECOVERY AND GROWTH"!

Though it took over FIVE calendar months,14th December, 2016, (date of submission to NASS), to 12th June, 2017, (date of Presidential approval), these enemies of the TALAKAWAS, resumed from SEVEN, instead of SIX WEEKS of annual recess only to castigate the Executive of SLOW IMPLEMENTATION of the budget document which they deliberately delayed for their selfish reasons in the first instance because the more delays in budget vetting, and the final assent, the more the loopholes for manipulation, butchering and RE-CREATION of the document to suit the legislators insatiable appetite for accumulation of illicit wealth through BUDGET PADDING under the guise of OVERSIGHT FUNCTIONS!
The 2017 Budget was signed into law by the Acting President, Professor 'Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, on JUNE 12, a very significant day in the national history of Nigeria as a UNITED people, who did not believe in SECESSION as a form of RESTRUCTURING!
On their resumption on 26th September, 2017, they bemoaned the Executive over the slow implementation of the Budget within THREE MONTHS of Presidential assent, and quickly constituted a NASS JOINT COMMITTEE TO REVIEW THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE 2017 BUDGET, chaired by Senator Danjuma Goge, a two-term Governor of Gombe State, who wasted no time to summon both the Ministers of Budget/Planning and Finance to explain all about the delay when he as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriation, was neck deep in the whole maladministration!

At that meeting, held on Thursday 5th October, 2017, both Ministers told the Committee that Senate Legislators were responsible for the slow execution of the Budget because they refused to approve the external loan of $55.5 billion required for specific Capital Projects in respect of the Second Runway for the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja; Mambila Hydro Electric Project, Taraba ; Counter-part Funding of the Railway Line Projects and also, the completion of the six lane Lagos -Ibadan Express Way!

The Executive has forwarded a fresh letter of request in respect of the loan for faster execution of the budget on Wednesday 11 October, 2017. Also during the meeting, there was a consensus of opinion that if the January to December Financial Year System would not be viable, the uncompleted portions of the 2017 Budget should be rolled over into the 2018 Budget Appropriation which the Executive intends to submit before December 2017.


IS SENATOR GOJE THE IDEAL PERSON TO HEAD THE JOINT BUDGET COMMITTEE?

Like several of his colleagues in the Senate Red Chambers, Danjuma Goje is presently facing court trial on, conspiracy, mismanagement and embezzlement of public funds while he superintended over the affairs of Gombe State for EIGHT YEARS! And as Chairman of Senate Committee on Budget, he accused the Nigeria Police Force operatives for "stealing" the CLEAN COPY of the 2017 budget document during an official raid on his Abuja residence on Tuesday, 25th April, 2017' and said any blame on the delay of the appropriation document should be laid at their doorstep!

During that raid which Police authorities claimed was informed by a petition against the Senator, the following items, (which did not contain any FILE OF THE 2017 BUDGET), were found and removed into Police custody: N 18.056.000 million naira; $ 19, 850, US dollars; 9,400 Saudi Ryad; 38 files and Six Envelopes containing files on funds for Special Operations; File on Gombe State Government on Nigeria Cash Inflow; and File on Project 2007 Executive Briefs on How to Fight Opposition in Gombe State - Strategies and Tactics. Other were envelopes containing permit to operate as an OIL INDUSTRY SERVICE COY (Special Categories)!
The Inspector General of Police who was summoned by the Senate President on Wednesday, 26th September, 2017, has promptly returned all the files, envelopes and monies seized from Senator Danjuma Goje to him, and the whole incident swept under the carpet!


OF WHAT ADVANTAGE IS APC'S MAJORITY IN BOTH CHAMBERS?
That the All Progressives Congress (APC), ruling party has comfortable majority in the bi-cameral chambers of the National Assembly (NASS), and has not produced much positive gains in the revolutionary economic agenda of the Change Mantra is because of deliberate sabotage of the mixed multitude, especially within the RED CHAMBERS!
Right from inception on 9th June 2015, these enemies of the State, who were mostly PDP MOLES, left no one in doubt of their 'modus operandi', which was to subtly dis-organize the APC by constituting themselves into "household enemies" within the ruling family, having benefitted immensely and saturated during 16 years of an unbridled institutional-backed corruption, (1999-2015), and which they planned to sustain by remaining in the ruling government to avoid official probes and eventual prosecution!

It is an open secret that Abubakar Saraki would not have continuously sat as Senate President for over TWO years with Senator Ike Ekeremadu of the People's Democratic Party, if he did not have diabolical support of his accomplices with whom he upturned APC's Party Supremacy!
They constituted themselves into an OPPOSITION GROUP within the APC and orchestrated a face-off with the Executive in the THIRD QUARTER of 2016 when they rejected the list of about 48 non-career ambassadorial nominees by President Muhammadu Buhari; rejected the Executive Mid-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), document which Ali Ndume, as the then Senate Leader described as an "EMPTY DOCUMENT"; rejected US$ 29.9 foreign loan request by Mr. President meant to cushion the biting effects of the economic recession and refused to confirm Mr. Ibrahim Magu as the substantive Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)!

This time around in the FOURTH QUARTER of 2017, the legislators have delayed Executive request for a foreign loan of $5.5 billion US dollars to execute critical capital expenditures that would be economically beneficial to the downtrodden masses in the areas of CAPITAL PROJECTS that would be beneficial to the masses!

THERE IS A CONCENSUS OF OPINION THAT BUDGETS SHOULD NOT BE EXECUTED WITH LOANS BUT NO COUNTRY (EVEN THE UNITED STATES), HAS EVER BEEN STIGMATISED FOR VENTURING INTO BORROWING BECAUSE IT IS A GLOBAL NORM!

Although Nigeria's debt profile is on the increase and debt management payments are skyrocketing, one great advantage is that the borrowed monies are channelled to lucrative CAPITAL VENTURES that would facilitate smooth pay backs and will always attract foreign and local investments; but the legislators who have always constituted themselves into THE CLOG IN THE WHEEL OF OUR COLLECTIVE PROGRESS MUST GIVE WAY TO THE CHANGE MANTRA!
A UNICAMERAL PARLIAMENT OF TWO REPRESENTATIVES FROM EACH STATE AND THE FEDERAL CAPITAL TERRITORY, WILL WORK ON PART-TIME AND COLLECT CIVIL SERVANTS REMUNERATION IS MOST IDEAL FOR THE CHANGE AGENDA! A STITCH IN TIME SAVES NINE!


I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon. 08130669886, 08098194390. 08080243066 g-mail- dvdolufon@gmail.com.