Former finance minister Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala has revealed the blackmail and arm-twisting that characterized
budget passing by the National Assembly during the Goodluck Jonathan
Administration.
She cited an instance in 2015 when
the National Assembly leadership forced the executive arm to part with N17
billion for the federal lawmakers to pass that year’s budget.
That, she said, was at a time crude
price had gone down drastically.
The N17 billion alleged bribe,
according to Okonjo-Iweala in her book Fighting Corruption is
Dangerous:The Story Behind the Headlines, was besides the NASS N150
billion annual ‘standard’ budget.
Her words: “The legislature was
concerned largely about three things—the size of its own budget; the nature and
the size of the capital budget, particularly investment projects; and the
number and geographical location of the projects.
“Senators and Representatives felt
that their role as appropriators of the budget was not just to vet and approve
budget parameters and oversee budget implementation, but also to shape the size
and content of the budgets, including details of specific projects.”
She said members of the NASS Finance
and Appropriation even felt ”they had the right–indeed the duty–to get
into the details of the budget formulation and preparation process all along
the budget value chain.”
The ex-minister said the NASS
leadership, working through the various committees, “sought to add more to
individual projects or create completely new, unappropriated major projects,
thereby distorting the budget.”
But she explained that “not all
National Assembly members supported these unfortunate manipulations of the
budget.”
She added: “National Assembly
members had negotiated large increases in the National Assembly budgets
and would brook no discussions or challenges on the issue.
“Their operational budget had
ballooned to N150 billion or 16 per cent of the budget and almost 3.5 times the
2006 budget (in naira).”
Okonjo-Iweala said when it was
proposed that the lawmakers should give up some of their benefits in view of
dwindling revenue in 2015, they bluntly refused to do so.
“By
the time we presented the budget on December 16, 2014, oil prices had fallen
further to $58 per barrel.
“We were prepared and we knew we had
to trigger the additional expenditure and revenue measures in 2015 to make the
budget work.
“This would be tough, given that we
had entered an election year,” she said.
”Indeed, legislators initially refused to accept any cuts to
their regular N150 billion budget, despite dwindling revenues.
“But eventually, they agreed to a 13
per cent cut against a backdrop of ministers accepting a voluntary 50 per cent
cut to their basic salaries.
“In a tough session with the
National Assembly’s ad hoc committee on the budget (made up of chairs of the Finance
Committee and Appropriation Committee of both chambers and other leaders of the
National Assembly), an additional N20 billion was re-introduced as election
expenses for National Assembly members.
“We insisted the amount be dropped
because it nullified the 13 per cent cut made to their statutory budget, but
managed to reduce the N20 billion figure by only N3 billion to N17 billion.
“This became the price to pay to
have the 2015 budget passed.”
Okonjo-Iweala was Jonathan’s finance
minister from August 17, 2011 to May 29, 2015.
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