The House of
Representatives will, this week, begin its final consideration of the
2010 multi-trillion federal budget. The debate begins almost four
months after it received the estimates sent by President Umaru Yar’Adua
to the National Assembly.

The two chambers of
the legislature received Mr. Yar’Adua’s N4.079 trillion fiscal
proposals for the year, through the President’s Special Adviser on
National Assembly Affairs, Mohammed Abba-Aji, on November 24, 2009, a
day after he travelled to Saudi Arabia for medical attention.

The Senate later confirmed a proposal of about N300 billion was sent by the president for additional approval.

Blame delay on the president

Although the
estimates were detailed to respective legislative committees for
consideration, lawmakers admitted that the controversies created during
the president’s continued poor health, have affected the delivery of
the Assembly.

The House of
Representatives has listed the presentation and consideration of the
outcome of its committees’ work for Thursday this week, after which the
budget will be prepared for the third and final reading.

Ita Enang, who
heads the House committee on Business and Rules, said he is
“optimistic” the consideration of the report will be carried out this
week by the lawmakers

“I can say with a 70% to 80% certainty that the budget will be received for consideration this week,” Mr. Enang said.

He, however, said
the planned deliberation is not certain, and did not guarantee its
outcome. “We cannot conclusively say anything on its outcome.”

Lawmakers through
the 64 House committees will be expected to either scale up or down
specific provisions contained in the original document submitted by the
presidency before a subsequent harmonization with the Senate. The
Senate has yet to make clear its planned schedule for the consideration.

During the initial consideration of the appropriation bill last
year, many lawmakers faulted the president’s preference for a budget
led in majority by a recurrent expenditure of N3.382 trillion while the
development (capital) expenditure has N1.37 trillion.