The National Assembly on Thursday rejected the proposal by the federal government to cut their annual budget of N150 billion to N115 billion and instead pegged the federal legislature’s 2015 budget at N120 billion.

This fresh decision was the fallout of the report of the conference committee of both houses of the National Assembly which met on the benchmark for the budget on Wednesday.

The report which recommended $53 benchmark for 2015 budget, was adopted by the Senate.

A careful study of the report showed that whereas the Senate had earlier agreed to a budget cut from N150 billion to N115 billion, the House of Representatives on its part, rejected the decision and insisted that the figure be raised to N120 billion.

Consequently, the committee resolved to adopt the House of Representatives’ version which had earlier agreed to only reduce the National Assembly budget to N120 billion.

THISDAY had reported days earlier that some members of the National Assembly vehemently protested the proposal by the federal government to cut their budget despite the economic crisis confronting the nation.

This National Assembly’s decision is likely to put the institution in the eyes of the storm in the near future as it is viewed to have confirmed the perception of the vast majority of Nigerians that the lawmakers feed fat on the nation’s treasury and will do everything to sustain it.

Before the conference committee was constituted, the Joint National Assembly Committee on Finance had had an understanding with the federal government to peg the oil benchmark at $52 per barrel.

This resolution reportedly followed the decision of the committee which had earlier rejected the plea by the federal government to peg the benchmark at $55 per barrel.

But while the Senate adopted the recommendation of $52 per barrel, the House of Representatives in its usual act of grandstanding rejected it and instead adopted a new benchmark of $54 per barrel. This forced the leadership of the National Assembly to constitute a conference committee of both houses to harmonise the differences.

When the committee concluded its assignment on Wednesday, it neither adopted the Senate version on the benchmark nor agreed to that of the House of Representatives. Instead, it settled for a fresh benchmark of $53 per barrel.
However, the conference committee adopted the Senate version on foreign exchange which had put the rate at N190 to $1. The adoption followed the rejection of the House version which had recommended $198 to $1 as foreign exchange for 2015 budget. The official exchange rate is N199 to $1.

But while adopting the recommendation of $53 per barrel benchmark, Senate President, David Mark said it was wrong of the committee to foist a fresh benchmark of $53 per barrel on the National Assembly.

According to him, whenever a conference committee is constituted by the National Assembly to resolve differences in both chambers, the committee is expected to adopt either of the two positions.

Against this background, he said the tradition was for the committee to either adopt $52 as adopted by the Senate or absorb $54 that the House settled for.
He advised against repeating the trend in the near future.

Meanwhile, the Senate yesterday approved the harmonised version of the 2015 – 2017 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP).

This followed a presentation of the Conference Committee report by the Chairman Senate Committee on Finance, Senator Ahmed Makarfi (PDP-Kaduna North).

Makarfi said the Conference Committee adopted N190 exchange rate to the dollar, $53 per barrel oil benchmark as well as a statutory transfer of $368 billion.

“On the exchange rate, the Conference Committee adopted the Senate version which has N190 exchange rate to the dollar.

“On the oil price benchmark, whereas the Senate passed it on $52 per barrel, the House passed it on $54 per barrel.

“The conference committee agreed to recommend a benchmark of $53 per barrel.

“Item three is on statutory transfer, the conference committee adopted the house version which reduced the statutory transfer from $411.85 billion to $368 billion.“

Presiding over plenary, Mark, raised concern over the adoption of $53 per barrel by the conference committee.

He said the committee should have adopted either the benchmark passed by Senate or House of Representatives.

“The two conference teams have no right to do that; you either take one or the other.

“You either take the House version or the Senate version; you cannot set a new one; no you can’t. It is okay, we will let this one go.

“Those in favour that the Senate approves the Conference Committee report on the 2015 – 2017 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) say ‘aye’; against say ‘nay.’

“The ‘ayes’ have it. Thank you very much. I hope that with this the appropriation committee will hasten the budget preparations.“