By Soni Daniel, Regional Editor, North
ABUJA—The Federal Government has continued to keep Nigerians and foreigners guessing by not making public the details of the 2015 budget, which was presented to the National Assembly about two weeks ago by the Finance Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
Although Okonjo-Iweala had promised to release the breakdown of the estimates to journalists immediately after the presentation as is the norm, it is not clear why she reneged on her pledge almost two weeks after the presentation on December 17, 2014.
Competent sources in the Ministry of Finance and the Budget Office of the Federation pointed to the fact that the only six copies of the voluminous document were printed and given to relevant officials of the ministry while two went to the National Assembly leadership.
File: Okonjo-Iweala
DG, Budget Office
However, the Director General of the Budget Office of the Federation, Dr. Bright Okogu, on Tuesday told one of our correspondents that the delay in making copies available to Nigerians was occasioned by the long Christmas holidays.
Okogu denied insinuations that the document was kept away because there was anything to hide.
According to him, there was no way the document could be uploaded on the Budget Office website as is the tradition when all the staff had proceeded on holidays officially declared by the government.
The director assured that the document would be put up on the department’s website once the holidays were over.
But several sources said that the decision to blank out the media this year was deliberately taken to ensure that no negative report was made against the Presidency and its agencies considering the fact that ‘we are approaching election year’.
One of the top officials in the Federal Ministry of Finance pointed to the fact that the administration was unhappy that the media had been reporting ‘negative and embarrassing things’ about details of the expenditure of this administration’ making a mockery of its open style of leadership.
The source said that the government was concerned that even the minute details of its expenditure items, which should be kept secret were being bandied about by some careless journalists, thereby throwing the administration into unnecessary controversies.
“I can tell you that the media is the cause of its own problem. This time around, the breakdown is not likely to come as usual as, there is a deliberate move to keep the budget details away from the pubic as possible,” a source, which did not want to be quoted, said.
According to him, the decision to limit access to the detailed budget document was responsible for the printing of only six copies, which had since been shared to the appropriate principal officers in the ministry and the NASS.
NASS and limited copies of the Budget
It was learnt that the National Assembly, which is expected to deliberate and approve the budget, got only two copies instead of the usual practice of distributing to all members to study before proceeding on Christmas break so as to prepare for deliberation of the budget .
A source, close to the NASS said that it was yet to lay hands on the document but expressed the hope that it would be made available before the members resume from their Christmas holidays.
The budget has an outlay of over N4 trillion and makes more provision for recurrent expenditure than capital projects.
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