Babatunde Fashola, minster of power, works and
housing, says there are aspects of the 2017
appropriation act that violate the constitution,
suggesting that the judiciary may have to explain how
far lawmakers can go in altering the budget.

Acting President Yemi Osinbajo had questioned the
extent of changes made to the 2017 appropriation bill
by the federal lawmakers, who replied that the national
assembly acted within the law and is not a rubber-
stamp body.

But in an interview with TheCable at the weekend,
Fashola said there may be need for judicial
interpretation to lay the controversy to rest, pointing
out that some of the projects included in the budget of
his own ministry were a violation of the constitution.

“In a federal example like ours, nobody should be
scared to have a judicial interpretation of the limits of
the power the parliament can exercise during
appropriation,” he said.

“It is the law that affects our day-to-day
developmental expectations. My view is that I don’t
think parliament has the power to increase the budget
because parliament does not collect taxes. Budget
has expenditure as it has revenues, and if executive
has formed the view about earning and borrowing
subject to the approval of the parliament, I think it is
only fair to say we won’t push you beyond what is
reasonable. If executive says it is unreasonable, there
is room for consultation but to unilaterally increase the
budget is not something that lies in the power of the
parliament, although they can reduce it.”

The former governor of Lagos state, who is a senior
advocate of Nigeria (SAN), said the issue of separation
of power should not be taken out of context,
maintaining that the three arms of government are
“inter-dependent” and no arm can be absolutely
independent, if not the business of government will
never be carried out.

VIOLATION OF LAW

Fashola said: “I don’t think that they can sit down and
legislate projects that are not federal projects, that
would be doing violence to the constitution because
there are three levels of government. The local and
state governments have their responsibilities and the
federal government should be building federal roads
not state roads.

“In my budget, you will find things like motorised
boreholes, primary health care centres. That is a
violation of the constitution, it shouldn’t be in the
appropriation law of the federal government. If the
judiciary decides that it is the national assembly that
should make the budget and hand it over to the
executive to implement, so be it.”

He said he cannot argue “fairly” that a legislator has
no input to make into the developmental plan of a
nation “but the question is how and when”.

“I had cause to appear before the committee of the
house of reps and I even presented a paper at their
invitation because they were planning to pass a
constituency project law and they were doing a
hearing on the bill and they were planning to create a
constituency offices and I said they shouldn’t do it, its
not necessary because there are institutional
capacities within our national framework for this kind
of thing,” he said.

“When the president submits the budget and these
committee hearings start, everyone is excited and we
are going from one committee room to the other, you’ll
wonder what we were doing then. That is the place I
expect that issues about projects that affect
constituencies to be brought up but the issues to be
taken on must be federal issues.

“A federal legislator’s constituency project must be a
federal matter otherwise you’ll be encroaching into the
territory of the state legislator, that is my argument.”

TAX PAYER’S MONEY

Fashola said a lot of money is spent on those
committee hearings only for the outcome to be
significantly different from what what agreed upon.

“They provide water, snack, media coverage and
various things, that is tax payer’s money being spent.
After all of that, you expect everything to be fine and
that all of the things that you have discussed will be
reflected in the output of the budget,” he said.

“What happens is that there is another committee
called the appropriation committee and I don’t know
how they brief each other but when your budget
returns, it is different from the budget that you
discussed and defended. You don’t recognise it
anymore.

“When I was defending my budget, we didn’t discuss
boreholes or primary health care centres, now I have
hundreds of them in my budget. I have new roads that
are state roads, I inherited over 200 roads when I
became minister that we are trying to complete and
even the right to add something must be in a context
of our national development.

“We have reports from previous administrations that
there are thousands of uncompleted projects in
Nigeria. Those projects must affect constituencies and
those are what we want to focus on and complete
those that have started. Some of the roads don’t have
a design so they can’t be built this year. What I would
have suggested if they were federal roads is that the
contract for their design be awarded so that next year,
we can award them and start building”.

He advised that the outcome of committee hearing be
summarised into a one or two-paged communique so
that they form part of the documents that are
submitted to the appropriation committee “so that if
any new issue arises, it is only fair to call the ministry
back to say we want to do this. It is unfair after
defending your budget that the committee unilaterally
decides to chop off this and that and apply it to areas
that were not previously discussed with you, without
considering if you have the manpower to do it”.

TheCable