President Goodluck Jonathan has vowed to sanction any Ministries, government Departments and Agencies (MDAs) that lobby the National Assembly to review and increase their already submitted budgetary allocations.
This is even as he declared that this year there will be no extension of the financial year beyond December 31, 2012.
Briefing journalists after the 5th session of the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting which was chaired by the President, the Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, disclosed that the President warned the MDAs against lobbying members of the National Assembly to increase their budgetary allocation, a situation he said has negatively impacted on the smooth implementation of the budgets.
"The practice of seeking alterations in the budget plan as presented by the President to National Assembly will no longer be tolerated. So all ministers have been asked to convey and enforce this massages to all parastatals under them to ensure we no longer have distorted implementation of our budget," Maku said.
"He advised all MDAs, particularly Chief Executives of parastatals under their ministries, to desist from the practice of going to the National Assembly to seek for a review of their budgetary estimates."
Maku who briefed alongside the Minister of Tourism, Edem Duke, further noted that "this has been one of the reasons why most budgets implementation have been problematic".
"You will recall that last year the Council resolved that henceforth no MDA is allowed to go the National Assembly and seek a fresh budgetary estimate outside the one that the federal executive carefully sat down to plan and send to the National Assembly."
The information minister also said the President directed that any MDAs that has an urgent need to review the estimates already placed before the National Assembly should follow the normal process of going back to the Federal Ministry of Finance for approval.
He also directed all Ministers and MDAs to ensure the prompt implementation of the 2012 budget.
"Even though the budget is still undergoing the normal process of appropriation in the National Assembly, Mr. President today put on notice that soon as the budget is passed by the National Assembly, he will like to see quick implementation of projects especially for projects that will be executed under this year's capital budget," Maku said.
"Mr. President said this year is decisive and is a year that he will want to see quicker action in the way we implement our projects. The President advised members of council to ensure that their parastatals particularly agencies that carry out capital projects under the various ministries to ensure that by June 2012, most projects would have been passed by council. This is to enable orderly implementation of this year's budget so that most of the projects that are to be executed would be carried out flawlessly."
The President, who said he is committed to cutting costs, also warned the ministers against unnecessary foreign trips and pushing government to host conferences.
"This is not to say Nigeria will not host international conferences from this year but that we will do so in a planned way not through a situation where conferences are just thrown at us and the conferences often cost a lot of money to host," Maku explained.
"So Mr. President directed all MDAs that they do not commit this country to hosting conferences that are not properly planned."
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