*He is an overzealous official —Tambuwal
By Henry Umoru
ABUJA — The Presidency, yesterday, sharply rebuffed the reprimand of President Goodluck Jonathan at the presentation of the 2013 budget at the National Assembly, Wednesday, asserting that Senate President David Mark and Speaker Aminu Tambuwal played to the gallery in their pronouncements.
The Presidency described the public disagreements with the President as discourteous. It also described as blasphemous, Speaker Aminu Tambuwal’s insistence that the Presidency comply with the House resolution that Ms Arumah Oteh be sacked from the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC.
Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe at a press briefing in Abuja in a point-by-point rebuttal of the assertions of the two leaders of the National Assembly, said the country was on course under the sterling economic management of President Jonathan contrary to the impressions of the two presiding officers of the National Assembly.
Mark and Tambuwal in separate reactions cautioned Okupe to know his limits, warning him that it was not his job description to make enemies for the president.
In a swipe at Mark over his claim that the National Assembly would not act as a robot in its treatment of the budget, Okupe while noting that the president had never treated the legislature as a rubber stamp, said: “Yesterday, the president delivered the 2013 budget speech, making him the first president in several years to do so three months ahead of the commencement of the new financial year.
President
Jonathan, Senate President David Mark and House Speaker Aminu Tambuwal
during the budget presentation, Wednesday, in Abuja. Photo: State House.
“What was clearly a master presentation was nearly marred by unnecessary remarks by the leadership of the National Assembly. That was neither the place nor the occasion for such; after all, Mr. President was the special guest of honour and a distinguished visitor to the hallowed chambers of the National Assembly. Normal legislative courtesy demands that such a visitor be allowed to perform his constitutional function without any attempt to rubbish the document that was yet to be discussed even by the members of the National Assembly.
“Specifically, the Senate President mentioned three major issues. First was that the Senate was not a rubber stamp. Let me say emphatically here and now, that the President and his administration do not expect and had never ever conceived the idea that in a healthy democracy, not just the Senate, but the National Assembly will just rubber stamp whatever it presents.”
Responding to the assertions by Mark that the presentations of the President are mere estimates, Okupe said: “Referring to budget figures as mere estimates, demeans the quality of the document itself. The budget represents the vision, the intentions and the definitive steps that the government intends to take over the next 12 months. What it requires is to table this before the elected representatives of the people for them to consider it and deliberate upon. Where amendments/adjustments are required, it should be done but to call these figures as mere estimates is rather unfair.
On non-implementation of the budget
“They also spoke about non-implementation of the budget. You will agree with me that, that has been a raging issue in the last couple of months. Firstly, the current budget of 2012, became law at the end of April 2012. So the budget has just been implemented for the past five months only. A budget is expected to last 12 months but because of its late passage it has only been implemented for five months and as of yesterday (Wednesday) the president gave a figure of N711.6 billion as having been disbursed out of the capital budget. That represents a figure of about 23 per cent already disbursed in five months.
“So the issue of implementation cannot be taken in isolation. It must be taken along with when the budget became law and duration of time which has elapsed between the time it became law and what has been dispensed from the budget.”
On the Speaker’s remarks
Pressing against Speaker Tambuwal, the presidential aide said: “I then go to the statements and comments by the Speaker of the House, which was officially intended to be a vote of thanks and in reality, even though vote of thanks do get extended to accommodate a couple of views, it is not usual that it is converted into another speech.
“That place was not an executive session of the House of Representatives. But I do not intend to take up any issue with the leadership of the National Assembly. Rather I will go into the points that were raised that were erroneous so that we can correct them for the benefits of the Nigerian people.
“The speaker said interim over-sight reports were clearly unimpressive both in terms of releases as well as utilisation. This statement cannot be wholesomely acceptable if you actually look at the background and the reasons for which the Assembly men hurriedly packaged the visit.
“In one week, the Assembly has gone round the whole country and quickly completed over-sight functions and came to the conclusion that they were unimpressive. It is the same argument that goes for non-release or implementation. I do not want to repeat myself and I also do not want to accuse anybody of bias or anything like that. But we feel that that judgment was unfair.
Release of funds to MDAs
“The other issue was the release of money to the MDAs as at when due. There are a couple of issues that guide the release of money. One is the issue of demand, necessity and availability and only the executive can give answers as to this. Up to date, none of the MDAs has complained or has been hampered from functioning simply because money due for projects was not released.
‘’The difference between the National Assembly and the executive branch is that, you pass a budget and then you wait in the assembly for it to be expended. But there are procedures for spending government money which cannot be abridged. If, for instance, in the case of a road, design has to be done, a lot of things have to be done, contract has to be advertised and awarded, mobilisation has to be paid.
“So these things really affect the release of funds and if I release to you N30 million for a road project and you have not expended that, I do not see why, just because the allocation is due, I should give you another money at a time that we are talking about serious fiscal discipline.
“The Speaker complained about the Bureau for Public Procurements, BPP, that it has been a bottle neck to effective capital implementation. That is unfortunate. This Bureau for Public Procurement was brought in to ensure accountability and also ensure that the era of contract inflation and over invoicing is ended.
“Federal revenue should not be squandered on the altar of speedy disbursement of funds to MDAs. I do not want to believe that the speaker was suggesting that this control measure must be abrogated. I don’t want to believe that.
Domestic borrowing
‘On domestic borrowing as raised by Speaker Tambuwal, the Presidency accused the National Assembly of being responsible on account of alleged hikes in past budgets of the Federal Government.
‘’The truth of the matter is that the speaker may not be aware or he should be aware, he is a third time law maker. It is the activities and actions of previous parliaments who continue to increase budgets that were sent to National Assembly without considering that the revenue continuously expanded yearly in deficit, leading to huge national debts.
‘’On the bench mark, that was pure drama. The President submitted the budget. The budget is yet to be passed or yet to be looked into and debated and all that, and here, another arm of government, in a dictatorial manner, authoritatively said that it has decided that the bench mark shall be $80.”
On call for Oteh’s sack
On resolutions by the National Assembly demanding the sack of Ms. Bolanle Onagoruwa and Ms Arumah Oteh as Directors-General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises, BPE and Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, respectively, Okupe said it is blasphemous to raise the issue saying an employer knows it best when to sack an employee.
He said: “In the interest of the Nigerian people, for the sake of our teeming masses, the National Assembly and the executive must of necessity find a common ground on all these issues, instead of unnecessary grandstanding and playing to the gallery, which will not help anybody or solve any of our problems.”
Know your limits, Mark tells Okupe
In a sharp response, Senator Mark speaking through his Special Adviser, Media, Mr. Kola Olagbodiyan cautioned Okupe to know his limits, asserting that Mark and the president were on the same page on the issues raised.
Advising Okupe that it was not his job to make enemies for the President, Mark said: “Our attention has been drawn to media attacks on the office and person of the President of the Senate, Senator David Mark, by the Senior Special Assistant to the President, Dr. Doyin Okupe, to the effect that the President of the Senate derided President Goodluck Jonathan during the budget presentation on Wednesday.
“It is instructive to first state that Senator Mark and Mr. President are on the same page in the onerous task of ensuring the actualisation of the transformation agenda of this administration.
‘’There was nothing derisive in the welcome address of the President of the Senate at the budget presentation. We challenge Dr. Okukpe to revisit the speech and discover his misadventure.
‘’It is, therefore, strange that Dr. Okupe would meddlesomely attempt to create unnecessary disaffection between the legislature and the executive. It is common knowledge that budgets are estimates of revenues and expenditures of the Federation for the next financial year. Section 81 of the1999 Constitution (as amended) is very explicit. The position of the Senate which was expressed by the President of the Senate is that in line with constitutional provisions, the legislature has a right of appropriation.
“Dr. Okupe as a public affairs manager has a responsibility to make friends and create a harmonious working relationship between the executive and other arms of government. His job is not to make enemies and create unfavourable atmosphere for Mr. President.
‘’We take exception to such unwarranted attack on the Office of the President of the Senate and we urge Dr. Okupe to know his limits.”
He is an overzealous official—Tambuwal
Speaker Tambuwal on his part equally brushed off Okupe as an overzealous official apparently ignorant of his duties.
In a statement by his Special Adviser, Media, Imam Imam, he said: “The attention of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, has been drawn to a press conference addressed by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, where he made disparaging remarks about the leadership of the two chambers of the National Assembly with regards to the remarks of Senate President David Mark and the Speaker of the House of Representatives at the presentation of the 2013 budget.
“The Speaker wishes to state that the remarks of the two leaders where in conformity with the provisions of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) and that all statements by the two leaders were backed by facts and figures from field studies by the legislators and expert advises.
“It is apparent that Okupe is dabbling into areas where he is totally ignorant about. The uncouth manner in which he replied elected representatives showed his apparent lack of respect for the legislature as an institution. The entire remarks he made gave him out as an overzealous official doing a hatchet job in order to be relevant in the scheme of things.
“The Speaker and the House of Representatives will always stand by the tenets of good governance and true representation at all times. “
SOURCE: 12 October 2012.
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