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Reps begin debate on 2005 budget today
By Uchenna Awom
National Assembly
Correspondent, Abuja
Members of the
House of Representatives will today commence debate on the 2005 Appropriation
Bill which was presented to the joint session of the National Assembly by
President Olusegun Obasanjo on October 12.
On Tuesday, the
plenary heard from the Chairman of its Committee on Internal Affairs, Ehiogie
West Idahosa, that SAGEM, the company handling the National Identity Card
project, is owed N9 billion by the government and has threatened to sack its
Nigerian staff as well as abandon the project.
Briefing reporters
on the budget, the Chairman House Committee on Appropriation, Gabriel Suswan,
and his Finance Committee counterpart, Farouk Lawan, said all is set for the
House to commence debate on the proposals today since the Presidency has
forwarded the breakdown and the revenue profile.
A partial
breakdown was received by the House last Thursday while the revenue profile got
to it only on Tuesday. Suswan hopes that the complete breakdown will be
forwarded before the conclusion of debate.
The House had
last week, through its Chairman, Media and Public Affairs, Abike Dabiri,
complained that the Presidency was delaying work on the budget by not
forwarding the breakdown a week after the budget was presented.
Giving the
summary of the revenue profile, Lawan said the government expects N987 billion
from its share of oil revenue, N25 billion from value added tax (VAT), N92
billion from the customs and excise, N100 billion from companies’ income
tax and N100 billion from independent revenue, totalling N1.304 trillion, against
N1.122 trillion from the same source in the 2004 fiscal year.
Idahosa urge the
House to stop SAGEM from abandoning the job, for which a proper contract was
entered into until the bribery scandal involving it and some top government
officers and politicians burst open last year.
He also told the
House while presenting his committee’s report that there is a short fall
of N5.1 billion in the overhead and personnel costs in the 2004 allocation to
the Prisons, leading to threats of a strike by officers.
The committee
recommended that the shortfall be captured in the 2005 budget but only when the
2004 problem has been properly addressed, and that its capital allocation be
raised in the 2005 budget to enable it implement prison reform.
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