2016 Passed Budget: The Full Breakdown

The National Assembly, yesterday, passed a N6.06 trillion 2016 budget into
law, following a motion by the Chairman, Joint Committee on Appropriations, Senator Danjuma Goje, seconded by Senator Andy Uba, thus reducing the President's
proposal by N17 billion.

While the President proposed a budget of N6.07 trillion, the
National Assembly slashed it to N6.06trillion. The 2016 budget had been trailed by
allegations of padding which delayed its passage.The highlight is as
follows: N351bn for statutory transfers, N1.4trn for debt service,
N2.6trn for recurrent expenditure, and N1.5trn as capital expenditure.
The N17 billion reduction in the aggregate expenditure of the budget
was taken from overhead votes component of the N2.65 trillion recurrent expenditure of the budget which has now been reduced to N2.646 trillion.
N2.2trillion fiscal deficit was retained. Also retained, were the parameters of $38 per
barrel oil price bench mark for the budget, 2.2million barrels of oil production per
day, exchange rate of N197 to a US dollar and deficit GDP of 2.14 per cent.

Meanwhile, the Presidency said that the Executive was adequately involved in the
resolution of controversy that arose from the budget before it was actually passed,
just as it hailed the National Assembly for the passage.
In the approved budget, the National Assembly ensured that only the N500billion
Intervention fund was allowed to scale through untouched as other components in
the budget were cut because it bordered on giving relief to the poor. President
Muhammadu Buhari had on Tuesday, December 22, 2015, presented before a Joint
Session of the National Assembly, a total budget estimate of N6, 077,680,000,000.
Of the total sum presented by Buhari, N351,270,000,000 is for statutory transfers,
N1, 475,320,000,000 is for Debt Service, N2,648,600,000,000 is for recurrent(non-
debt), while N1,845,540,000,000, inclusive of N157,150,000,000 Capital expenditure
in Statutory Transfers and N86,000,000,000 as interest on Capitalised Loans, is for
contribution to the Development Fund for Capital Expenditure for the year ending 31st
day of December, 2016.

The National Assembly which observed that the budget was not presented in time,
however, urged the federal government to submit the budget subsequently in strict
compliance with the Fiscal Policy Act.
From the N351.370 billion approved for statutory transfers, National Assembly gets N115 billion; Universal Basic Education gets N77.110 billion; National Judicial Council
gets N70 billion; the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, gets N45 billion; Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, gets N41.050 billion; Public
Complaints Commission gets N2 billion, while National Human Rights Commission gets N1.210 billion.

Also captured in the budget are: N14,690,036,516 for Group life insurance for all
MDAs, including DSS/insurance sensitive assets/corpers; N1 billion for armed forces
enhanced retirement benefits of Commodores and above; N2.795 billion for severance benefits of Delta Steel company/Pension pay-off; N2,544,110,811 for military retirees NHIS; N36 million for Administration and monitoring of OHSCF Group
Life; N200 million for Pension verification and administration; N2.3 billion for entitlements of former Presidents/Heads of State and Vice Presidents/Chief of General Staff and N1.5 billion for public service reforms (including payment of severance benefits of civil servants).

Out of N1,475,320,000,000 approved for Debt service, the sum of
N1,307,400,000,000 is for Domestic Debts; N54.480 billion for Foreign Debts while
N113.440 billion is for Sinking fund to retire maturing Loans.
From the N1,898,444,450,116 approved for Recurrent (non-debt expenditure),
Interior gets highest allocation of N451,942,552,070; Education gets
N367,734,727,223; Defence gets N312,213,355,618; Health, N221,412,548,087;
Youth & Sports Development, N72,297,326,595; Petroleum Resources,
N54,336,926,923; Foreign Affairs, N39,440,096,249; Information & Culture,
N38,729,446,483; Works, Power & Housing, N422, 964,928,495; Agriculture,
N29,632,584,416; while Science & Technology gets N25,554,038,310.
Presidency gets N21,676,277,888; NSA - N56,791,291,063; SGF -
N45,890,745,817; Head of Civil Service of the Federation - N6,270,657,023; Justice
- N17,389,782,636; Environment - N14,515,408,468; Transportation -
N13,667,122,591; Water Resources - N7,219,056,441; Solid Minerals -
N9,402,106,704; Industry, Trade & Investment - N10,410,294,458; Finance -
N9,994,990,976; National Planning - N7,737,100,536; AGF - N2,480,584,708;
Labour & Employment - N7,735,604,366; Niger Delta - N1,261,723,837; ICPC -
N5,029,989,359; Communication & Technology - N9,885,909,120; ICRC -
N838,569,623; FRC - N320,198,366; Special Duties SGF - N65,604,713; while
Women Affairs gets N1,216,723,837.
According to the report on capital votes for Ministries, Departments and Agencies
(MDAs), Federal Ministry of Works, Power and Housing gets the lion share of
N422,964,928,495, followed by Transportation with N188,674,679,674; Defence,
N130,864,439,542; Interior, N61,713,279,496; Agriculture, N46,173,963,859; Water
Resources, N46,081,121,423; Education, N35,433,487,466; National Security
Adviser, N32,084,085,624 and FCTA, N29,297,122,872.
The sum of N28,650,342,987 for Health; N27,006,179,073 for Science and
Technology; N23,004,199,702 for Presidency; N20,319,288,049 for Secretary to the
Government of the Federation; N19,440,328,551 for Niger Delta; N7,332,623,257 for
Solid Minerals Development; N5,542,655,626 for Labour and Employment;
N6,304,900,570 for Petroleum Resources; N5,992,735,230 for Communication
Technology; N4,957,964,638 for Environment while N2,322,144,778 for Budget and
National Planning.
The sum of N3,497,043,000 for Youth & Sports Development; N1,429,176,735 for
office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation; N2,293,528,977 for Women
Affairs; N897,736,744 for Justice; N123,044,650 for Fiscal Responsibility
Commission; N169,871,885 for National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission;
N35.730 million for Infrastructure Concessionary Regulatory Commission;
N317,509,819 for Auditor General of the Federation while N667,842,500 for Finance.
From the N1,173,407,694,354 approved for Executive (Federal Executive bodies),
Code of Conduct gets N4,889,127,358; Code of Conduct Tribunal gets
N1,055,560,066; Federal Character Commission gets N984,780,230; Federal Civil
Service Commission gets N16,841,017; National Population Commission gets
N4,411,606,590; Police Service Commission gets N269,628,000 while Revenue
Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission gets N19,883,417.
Also provided for in the budget are: N300 billion for special intervention (recurrent);
N20 billion for amnesty programme, N8 billion for Lafiya Dole; N4 billion for IPPIS
capturing; N1 billion for service wide training of budget/planning officers on GIFMIS
budget preparation system as well as monitoring and evaluation of all projects
nationwide; N2 billion for payment of outsourced services; N2.5 billion for provision
of security equipment for selected public buildings; N4 billion for Employees
Compensation Fund; N500 million for election logistics support; N12 billion for
Pilgrims support services; N12 billion for contingency; N3,599,600,000 for margin
for increases in costs and recurrent adjustment costs; N8.5 billion for external
financial obligations; N3.5 billion for assessed contribution to African Union and
others; N6 billion for contribution to international organizations including WAEC
international; N33,597,400,000 for public service wage adjustment for MDAs (Inc!
using arrears of promotion and salary increases); N3 billion for outstanding payments
to health professionals; N13 billion for operations - internal for armed forces;
N10.255 billion for Improved remuneration package for Nigerian Police including
2014 and 2015 shortfalls and N400 million for 35th annual general meeting and
symposium of Shelter-Afrique in Nigeria in June 2016.

Presenting the report at the plenary for consideration, Chairman, Senate Committee
on Appropriation, Senator Danjuma Goje, who noted that the budget was filled with
controversy, said there were many lapses in the budget, adding that if the senate
had insisted on clearing the lapses, the committee would not have been able to
meet up with the deadline of submission. The Senate said its approval of the 2016
fiscal document was due to its satisfaction that the country would benefit if it was
passed into law.
He said: “This budget is full of controversy and we did not want to have more
controversy or else it wouldn't have been presented today and the National Assembly
would be blamed. The people would not understand it because people are even
saying that we are playing politics."
“This budget exercise was a follow-up negotiation, going forward and back. When
the budget was presented as attested by many committees, there were strategies
discovered that couldn’t close the personnel cost in various committees and these
were highlighted by various committees and the total amount involved was presented
to the executive during the course of our interaction with the budget office.
“We presented that these are the shortfalls from personnel and other overhead cost
which we believe should be taken care of. So, because this budget is full of
controversies, we didn’t want to add more controversy and if we added more
controversy, the report wouldn’t have been submitted today and the National
Assembly would be blamed for delaying this budget . That is why we did everything
possible to ensure that we beat the deadline in bringing it today.
“Nigerians may not understand this thing, they will say the National Assembly is
playing politics with this budget and there is no politics in this budget. So, we do our
best everything possible to ensure that we present our budget as implement able
and suitable to Nigerians.

The National Assembly advised that there should be proper consultation between
the budget office and the ministries, departments and agencies and requested the
federal government to diversify its revenue base, and to shore up capital expenditure
and reduce recurrent expenditure. In his contribution before the passage of the
bill, Deputy Senate President,Uche Ekweremadu who noted that he was conscious
for the fact that it had earlier gone pass the second reading and “so this is not open
to debate, said, “ I will just like to make a very quick
comment, so let me start by commending the chairman of the appropriation
committee and its members as well as the chairmen of the various committees of
the Senate for the very outstanding work they have done to get bthis budget up to
this level which is now ready for passage today.
“I am a bit worried about the observation contained on page five, paragraph 5, it
says “the 2016 appropriation bill contained a number of omissions particularly in the
area of personnel cost though the appropriation committees have filled some of the
gaps and there are many outstanding cases which could raise serious concerns in
the course of the year.
“The executive presented what we consider to be a proposal and so the ultimate
responsibility for this budget rest on all members of the National Assembly. It may
be a mistake on the part of the executive and I think it ends at the point they
presented the budget.
“If anything happens after that and we passed the budget we cannot blame them any
longer. I therefore I will like to know what this outstanding cases are because it
appears that they are in relation to personnel cost, it could not be a good
commentary on this Senate or the National Assembly but down the line during the
year, we could discover that some of the people we are representing have not being
paid because we have refused, failed or neglected to appropriate for them their due
salaries and emoluments that could not be correct, or that would not be right.
“I will therefore be asking the chairman if they can oblige us those areas that are still
outstanding especially as concerned personnel cost so that we can take the
advantage of this consideration now to filling this gaps so that every citizens of
Nigeria as entitled to his pay would receive the pay appropriately and you cannot say
that he will not receive it because we failed to do our job and we cannot blame the
executive because we now have opportunities to address this problem.”
In his contribution, Senate Minority Leader, Senator Godswill Akpabio said, ‘’I want to
congratulate the chairman of the committee my dear brother, senator Goje and all
the members and the other sub-committees members and chairmen for a job well
done most especially for the observations contained in this paper on the
inconsistencies, the delays and shoddy jobs done on the budget by the different
Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and I know as a result of the fact that
this is the first major budget of the current administration this to not to quantify of
the change, this is rightly to be just mere mistakes and disconnect because a
situation where ministries and MDAs to go and deny and even went up to the extent of denying their own budget before the appropriation committee is not good for our country.                              -(Source: Vanguard)