ASESSEMENT OF THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATION OF THE 8TH ASSEMBLY ON BUDGET SCRUTINY

ASESSEMENT OF THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATION OF THE 8TH ASSEMBLY ON BUDGET SCRUTINY

BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Budgets affect all of us. As citizens, we depend on the state to provide crucial services and infrastructure, which depend on the way government raises revenue and allocates money to meet these various competing and sometimes conflicting needs;(Wehner,2004).Budget is one of the most important economic tools of a government and provides comprehensive statement of the priorities of a nation. Governments are large and complex institutions and this is reflected in their budgets, which makes budgeting in the public sector inherently complex (Aiyede&Isumonah, 2002).

The parliaments all over the world play important roles in budget process, which includes scrutiny and approval of budget estimates as presented by the Executive. Parliament, as a representative institution of the citizens, is an appropriate place to ensure that budget optimally matches the nation’s need with the available resources (Bowles, 1998).   Budget scrutiny is a parliamentary obligation derives from the power of the purse of the Parliament as enshrine in the constitution of Nigeria. Parliamentary scrutiny of public spending therefore, is a vital component of modern democratic system.in both developed and emerging democracies (Bowles, 1998). Effective budget scrutiny by the parliament ensures that government (Executive branch of Government) are held accountable for their actions and fiscal policy decisions as well as allowing parliament  to monitor both public service provisions and value for money.  

That is, it ensures robust accountability in the public interest by holding government and other providers of public services to account for the taxpayers’ money they spend which is capable of reducing corruption and wastages of public resources.

This budget scrutiny is carried out at both committee and house levels through budget debates organized during budget process. The budget debate is one of the key moments in the parliamentary year and it offers a crucial opportunity for Parliament to promote   the interests of those it represents. (Aiyede&Isumonah,2002). The parliamentary participation in budget process also affords the parliament opportunity through its oversight to ensure that the resources allocated within the budget are utilized in a manner that yields maximum benefit for the people. It is important to emphasis that budget scrutiny is an important statutory obligation which cut across the three main functions of legislature (Onyekpe, 2013).

Writing on the Parliamentary budget scrutiny, it is generally agreed that legislative committees are the engine room of the legislature and where the committee system is under –developed, the budgetary role of the legislature tends to be weak (Stapenhurst,2012). Specialized Committees are emerged as the fundamental tools for oversight in general and for the budget process and spending of public monies in particular. In Nigeria Parliament, the Appropriation Committee (created by the standing rules), which is the central focus of this study serves as the coordinating committee of the parliament in budget process, making it a core institution of public accountability (Olutoye,2010).

Since Nigeria   returned to democratic rule in 1999, the Appropriation Committee of the various assemblies of the National Assembly have been engaging in both pre and post budget scrutiny (Olutoye, 2010).  

However, the budget process in Nigeria is said to be fraught with imperfections and abuses. The most worrisome is the inability of the National Assembly to address alleged corruption that is eating deep into the fabrics of Nigerian society (Langlon,2012).

If corruption is the bane of budget performance in Ministries, Departments, and Agencies of government, it is expected that the National Assembly through its Appropriation Committee should examine the activities of these MDAs with a view to unraveling the corruption practices that are militating against budget outcomes. It has been alleged that the Appropriation Committee has not been effective in reducing corruption and accelerating budget performance (Onyekpe, 2012).   In the light of the above, this study is interested in assessing the contributions and the challenges of the Appropriation Committees of the 8th National Assembly in budget scrutiny between 2015 and 2019.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Due to the fact that this study is interested in carrying out assessment of   the roles played by the Appropriation Committee of the 8th Nigeria National Assembly in the budget scrutiny, it is therefore, specifically concerned in identifying and critically examining the constitutional functions of this committee in the process of budget scrutiny. The Committee reviews the macro economic and fiscal issues of the budget consideration in budget scrutiny. In other words these committees enhance the legislative budgetary scrutiny which leads to a strengthening of government accountability and transparency in the management of public funds. (Olutoye, 2012.,Onyekpe, 2012)  

However, in discussing the roles of the Appropriation committee as the engine room of the National Assembly in budget scrutiny, it has been established by many writers that the committee has not been effective in budget scrutiny and therefore it has not stimulated the MDAs for the attainment of budget outcomes(Anderson, 2017).

It was further argued that the Appropriation Committee only used budget scrutiny and oversight activities  to intimidate rather than to encourage MDAs to perform at optimum level especially in the area of budget implementation and therefore , budget scrutiny activities of the Appropriation Committee have not been beneficial to Nigerians since the return of democratic rule in 1999 (Onyekpe,2012). Langlon, (2012) argued that effective parliamentary scrutiny of public budget is central to democratization and improved budget management because Parliament has a role to ensure that the Nation’s priorities are adequately reflected in the Nation’s major fiscal plan which is the budget. However, he noted that the National Assembly and by extension the Appropriation Committee do not have sufficient information or technical capacity to play effective role in the budget process. The Executive will always have a greater information base than the legislature.

Consequently, based on the fact that much work has not been done in this regard, this study is therefore, designed to assess what the 8th Assembly Appropriation Committee did in terms of budget scrutiny in particular.  

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