BY LAWRENCE ETIM.
It appears the 2014 budget may run into problems due to lack of synergy between the Budget Office and some revenue generating Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, as House Committee on Finance raised alarm that the budget was already in deficit.
The crux of the matter however emerged, last Monday, at the continuation meetings between the House of Representatives Committee on Finance and some independent revenue generating agencies. Two major agencies, including the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, and Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, presented fiscal projections at variance with that of Budget Office.
This is owing to the fact that the suspension of Sanusi Lamido as the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, governor did not afford the institution the chance to make its submission before the committee, which pegged the level of presenters as that of directors and above in any of the agencies. Also, the representative sent by the CBN was not able to make any submission as the committee insisted that the acting governor should appear.
FAAN and NIMASA had their presentations deferred till today because of lack of clarity and inconsistencies in their submissions. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, which was billed to appear before the committee yesterday, did not.
Chairman of the committee, Abdulmumini Jibrin, decried the disharmony between the Budget Office and the MDAs, following submissions by NIMASA and FAAN that they did not interface with the Budget Office which submitted revenue projections for them to the committee.
