House C’ttees Fail to Meet Deadline for Reports on 2017 Budget

To investigate PPA violations in oil shipment processes

$500m Eurobond request referred to c’ttee
Damilola Oyedele in Abuja

Several standing committees of the House of Representatives did not adhere to the submission deadline of the reports of the 2017 budget defence sessions of the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) which they oversee, THISDAY has learnt.

The deadline was February 24, 2017.
The Chairman of the Committee on Appropriation, Hon. Mustapha Bala Dawaki, while disclosing this to lawmakers on Wednesday, said the development had led to a week delay which could affect early passage of the 2017 N7.3 trillion budget.

He, therefore, announced a new deadline of March 3, 2017, and urged the Chairmen of the committees to adhere to the date.
Meanwhile, the Speaker of the House, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, has referred the $500 million Eurobond request by Acting President Yemi Osinbajo to the House Committee on Aids, Loans and Debt Management.

The committee chaired by Hon. Adeyinka Ajayi, was mandated to submit its report latest March 7, 2017.
Osinbajo, last week had written to the National Assembly, seeking approval for the issuance of $500 million Eurobond in the international capital markets, to address the deficit in the 2016 budget.

The acting president had sought for expediency in the consideration, to allow the government take advantage of favourable market conditions, following the recent over-subcription of a $1billion Eurobond.

The proceeds are to be used as funding sources to finance the budget deficit, including the capital components of the budget which ends in May 2017. The issuance is planned to hold between February and March 2017, subject to market conditions in order to meet with the approved capital expenditure funding plan, Osinbajo had said in his letter to Dogara.

In another development, the House mandated its Committee on Public Procurement to investigate allegations of abuse, breach and violation of the Public Procurement Act, 2007 in the engagement of consultants for pre-shipment inspection and monitoring of crude oil and gas exports from Nigeria.

The resolution followed a motion moved by Hon. Babatunde Kolawole (Ondo PDP) who recalled that the president, in June 2015, had mandated the Finance Ministry to process the engagement of pre-shipment inspectors through selective tendering approved by the Bureau for Public Procurement (BPP).

“In December 2015, after the selection of 65 companies to participate in the biding stage, the Minister of Finance ordered the immediate cancellation of the tendering process on the grounds of lack of transparency, accountability and on the basis of a formal complaint from the BPP,” he said.
The ministry thereafter initiated a fresh tendering process, which has however been fraught with allegations of abuses, Kolawole noted

The abuses, he alleged, are by vested interests in the Ministry of Finance who are selecting non-responsive companies that do not meet basic statutory requirements like possession of valid PENCOM certificates as required by the Public Procurement Act.

“Concerned that if urgent steps are not taken to investigate the allegations, non-responsive and incompetent consultants would be engaged which will undermine the entire pre-shipment inspection and monitoring exercise, thus leading to significant revenue losses,” Kolawole warned.