By Akpandem James
With the National Assembly passing the 2020 Appropriation Bill yesterday (Thursday, December 5, 2019), the position of the immediate past Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, that the January to December fiscal year can be achieved once the leadership of National the Assembly aligns with the Executive has been vindicated.
Senator Udoma who started the campaign for the return to the January to December budget cycle had consistently blamed the inability to achieve the more strategic fiscal cycle on the frosty relationship between the two arms of government; but he was hopeful that the present administration would still achieved it once the leadership of the National Assembly is convinced and aligned with the Executive.
At his end-of-tenure interaction with the media in Abuja on Tuesday, May 21 this year, Senator Udoma had pointed out that achieving the goal will require a very close working relationship of trust and synergy between the two arms of government.
He regretted that the administration was unable to achieve it in the first four years because of the friction between the two arms of government; but predicted that “in Mr. President’s second term we might have a situation where the Executive and the leadership of the National Assembly are much more aligned. This will help not only to be able to achieve a return to the January to December fiscal year, but to have a much smoother budget process”, he said.
Senator Udoma had explained that a return to the January to December fiscal year for a budget when the operation of the current budget only commenced in June or July was a very challenging assignment.
In order to achieve a return to a 1st of January commencement date, Senator Udoma indicated that the budget must ideally be delivered to the National Assembly by September. “But when you are operating a budget which commenced only in June or July, by September you would have had no idea how the existing budget is likely to perform”.
“Indeed, given the procurement process, for a budget which starts running in June or July, there might have been little or no capital releases by September. The only way to return to a January to December fiscal year, under those circumstances, is for there to be agreement between the Executive and the National Assembly to produce a budget on the basis of significant assumptions” he told journalists at the conference.
Senator Udoma was therefore delighted that the alignment between the 9th Assembly (in its first budget outing) with the Executive is poised to return the country to the January to December fiscal year.
- Akpandem James, Special Adviser to the Senator Udoma Udo Udoma
