US embassy cable - 04ABUJA184

UNCLAS ABUJA 000184 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ECON, PGOV, NI 
SUBJECT:  BUDGET IMPLEMENTATION:  NATIONAL ASSEMBLY 
COMMITTEE PROPOSES MANDATORY RELEASE OF FUNDS 
 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED, NOT FOR PUBLICATION ON THE 
INTERNET OR INTRANET 
 
1. (SBU) Summary:  The Chairman of the House Committee on 
Appropriations, Rep. Gabriel Suswan, presented his 
Committee's white paper on the budget February 3, the result 
of a recent three-day retreat for members of his committee 
to prepare for the budget debate.  Suswan declared that the 
Committee would insert a mandatory requirement in the budget 
to release funds by dates certain, and noted several 
problems the Committee had with the budget itself.  The 
Chairman has not yet announced a timetable for the budget 
debate.  End Summary. 
 
2. (U) Members of the National Assembly's House Committee on 
Appropriations spent a three-day retreat during the Eid-el- 
Adha weekend in Makurdi, Benue State.  The retreat was an 
opportunity for the members to discuss the budget recently 
submitted by the Presidency to the National Assembly. 
Chairman Gabriel Suswan announced after the retreat that the 
members had decided to insert a mandatory requirement into 
the budget to release funds for allocated expenditures by a 
designated date.  The chairman has not announced a timetable 
for the House to vote on a revised budget, although it is 
believed that the due date for revisions will be moved to 
February 20. 
 
3. (U) Chairman Suswan also mentioned a number of problems 
that the committee noted in the draft budget.  They thought 
33 percent allocation of government revenues for domestic 
debt service was far too high.  He also noted that profits 
from the privatization program were not included in the 
draft as revenue, that there were several line items of 
capital expenditures for projects already abandoned in 
previous years, and that there was no mention of pension 
reform. 
 
4. (SBU) Unfortunately for Nigeria, well over half of last 
year's budget has never been implemented; funds were never 
released to the ministries for the allocated line items 
within the budget.  Given the GON's trend of the budget 
having little to do with how federal funds are actually 
spent, it will be an uphill fight on budget implementation 
and there is no certainty that the Committee's rather 
unsophisticated "set a date certain" approach to releasing 
funds will gain traction. 
ROBERTS