THE long battle between the presidency and the National Assembly over the 2013 budget is not yet over, as the presidency has ordered a probe into the constituency projects done by the legislative arm of government in the past 10 years.Sources from the presidency, who did not say precisely what the government wanted to use the report for, said the presidency has given them directive to compile all the National Assembly constituency projects done in the last 10 years and forward the report to it within one month.
“They have directed us to compile all the constituency projects done by the National Assembly in the last 10 years and forward the report to the presidency. We are to visit the site of the projects and see physically what has been done so far and report back within one month,” the source said.
“We were not told the purpose of the assignment, but we gathered that they (government) are actually interested in what happened in the last 10 years,” the source said.
There have been controversy between the two arms of government over the money budgeted for the constituency projects by the National Assembly in the 2013 budget. This development led to the delay in signing the budget by President Goodluck Jonathan.
The Minister of Finance and the Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, had informed that the N4.924 trillion 2013 budget is not implementable the way the National Assembly passed it, stressing that the president might not sign it unless the grey areas were resolved.
The President however signed the budget.
Though the lawmakers adopted the crude oil production capacity of 2.53 million barrels per day and an exchange rate of N160 to the dollar proposed by the executive, they, however, raised the benchmark oil price from $75 per barrel to $79, and added extra N63 billion to the budget.
Other key assumptions and parameters in the 2013 appropriation accepted by the lawmakers included gross domestic product growth rate of 6.5 per cent and inflation rate of 9.5 per cent.
“They have directed us to compile all the constituency projects done by the National Assembly in the last 10 years and forward the report to the presidency. We are to visit the site of the projects and see physically what has been done so far and report back within one month,” the source said.
“We were not told the purpose of the assignment, but we gathered that they (government) are actually interested in what happened in the last 10 years,” the source said.
There have been controversy between the two arms of government over the money budgeted for the constituency projects by the National Assembly in the 2013 budget. This development led to the delay in signing the budget by President Goodluck Jonathan.
The Minister of Finance and the Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, had informed that the N4.924 trillion 2013 budget is not implementable the way the National Assembly passed it, stressing that the president might not sign it unless the grey areas were resolved.
The President however signed the budget.
Though the lawmakers adopted the crude oil production capacity of 2.53 million barrels per day and an exchange rate of N160 to the dollar proposed by the executive, they, however, raised the benchmark oil price from $75 per barrel to $79, and added extra N63 billion to the budget.
Other key assumptions and parameters in the 2013 appropriation accepted by the lawmakers included gross domestic product growth rate of 6.5 per cent and inflation rate of 9.5 per cent.
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