The House of Representatives has warned that Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) that failed to implement the 2021 budget will be turned back during the 2022 budget defence and also may not get their appropriations.
This was disclosed in a press briefing by the spokesman of the House, Rep. Benjamin Kalu (APC-Abia) on Thursday, in Abuja, after the 2022 budget passed second reading on the floor of the house.
The Reps spokesman said that MDAs that claimed they did not receive 100% funding and did not fully implement their budgets would be turned back.
Read: FG to penalise MDAs that fail to meet revenue targets
What they said
Kalu said, “It is one thing to move the budget early enough, it is one thing to return the budget from January to December circle, but it’s another thing to sabotage the government by saying you have not received 100% funding and so there will be no implementation.
“There is no place where the Appropriation Act says you must receive 100 per cent funding before you start implementation.
“We frown at agencies of government that say ‘We have only received 75%, we only received 60 per cent and we are waiting for more to come before we begin.’ Why don’t you start with the 60 per cent and when others come, you mobilise?
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“To wait until the dying minute and then you give contractors 100%, for them to perform, before coming for budget defence is a wrong strategy.
“This is one thing we want the MDAs to change and we are going to be on the lookout in the budget implementation defence when they appear before us.
“Most of them will be sent back. Any MDAs that took government monies, kept it in the bank and refused to use it and are coming to tell us that it was not complete, they will be sent back.
“Some of them may not get appropriation for the new budget, because until you have justified what you took before, what is the essence of asking for more?”
They urged that if MDAs ignored the resolution of the parliament, and drafted their own budget without making reference to what the representatives of the Nigerian people asked, they would be acting on their own, which would be an exercise in futility.
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“Because we are going to pick it up and match it against the Legislative Compliance Committee’s report and find out if the MDAs are complying with legislative resolutions. It is no longer an all comers’ affair.
“If you ignore legislative resolutions, and out of the blues you bring what is totally strange to us, be sure that we will question you on that and you must justify it or we take it out.
“I want to assure Nigerians that the budget will not leave the way it came to the National Assembly; it is either we take it up or bring it down.
“It will not be garbage in garbage out; a lot of work is going to be done,” he said.
In case you missed it
Recall Nairametrics reported that the Federal Government had announced plans to sanction Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA) that failed to meet their revenue targets, coming after the Federal Government limited the expenditure of Government-Owned Enterprises (GOEs) at a maximum of 50% of the revenue they generated.
