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Editorial: The Furore Over Budget

Editorial: The Furore Over Budget
  • PublishedJuly 7, 2017

At a time the national economy is only beginning to crawl out of recession, it is unfortunate that the National Assembly is locked in tango with the executive over issues surrounding the 2017 Budget. Clearly, if we had thought that the past six months during which the budget underwent parliamentary scrutiny would suffice for the two parties to clear all grey areas, make necessary compromises and then push for speedy implementation of the budget said to have been designed to address the economic downturn, the latest animus shows how wrong we are. We consider it tragic that the country’s leadership would, at a time like this, embark on shadow-boxing when the economy is grinding to a halt.

The vexing issue, of course, is whether or not the National Assembly can introduce new elements outside what the executive has proposed into the budget. While many would argue that the constitution, particularly the provisions of Section 80, 81 is unambiguous, there currently exists a cloud of doubts as to whether or not the lawmakers could introduce new elements outside what is laid before them without running foul of the doctrine of separation of power. While the debate is legitimate, we had expected the parties to have ironed out their differences behind closed doors as against what is now fast turning to a costly distraction.

Far from being strictly matters of law and constitutionalism, what seems evident to us in the current matter is the failure of politics. For while the Executive branch might seem right to argue that the lawmakers have no right to distort the budget through needles tinkering; that itself merely underlie its grave frustration with the perennial practice – by lawmakers – to insert new projects into the budget often without consultations with the executive branch. To put it mildly: that practice cannot be right. Yes, we expect that the Appropriation Act to be implemented faithfully by the executive; it however goes without saying that the executive branch as the implementing agency, cannot be expected to plunge into implementing elements it did not introduce – and over which there were no a-priori consultations– even when they manage to surface on the pages of the Appropriation Act.

So also is the strange notion of insularity under which the executive seeks to deny the lawmakers any serious input into the making of the budget – a position that is not supported by the law or the constitution.

Having said that, the point also needs to be made that while we find nothing particularly strange or novel in having constituency projects inserted by the lawmakers, what has become problematic over the years is the insistence by the lawmakers to execute them. Simply because the projects all too often, not organically linked to the communities they are expected to serve, nor are the local government consulted prior to their initiation, they end up as mere duplications of the ones the local government already have in place. With no votes allocated for periodic maintenance because they are financed with federal money, they are no sooner abandoned to rot away.

We urge both parties to work through a compromise. To the extent that all of the issues being raised can be cured by consultations and proper coordination, a good way to proceed is for both parties to set up a body to coordinate the projects after which they would be properly evaluated, costed and incorporated into the national budget. Aside helping to stave off the annual ritual of distractions, it would help eliminate the needless grandstanding.

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