Ben Akabueze, Director-General, Budget Office of the Federation, says the Federal Government has concluded plans to adopt the organic budget law in 2018 to speed up its implementation.
Akabueze made this known during a monthly Lunch Time Reform Seminar on Thursday in Abuja with the theme: “Development in the Nigeria Budgeting System.”
An organic budget law is an act specifying the schedule and procedures by which the budget should be prepared, approved, executed, accounted for and final accounts submitted for approval.
Akabueze said the process would specify a calendar that would bind the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the National Assembly to perform adequately as it related to budget implementation.
Akabueze said: “There is an organic budget law in process which will specify a calendar.
“That calendar will bind the president to present the budget to the National Assembly by a particular day.
“It will also bind the National Assembly to approve that budget by a particular day and the president to sign and allow sufficient time for the National Assembly to be able to override the presidential approval.
“And the whole goal is that by the January 1, 2018, we should have that budget. We are working with the budget reforms committee of the National Assembly.
“We have also agreed that it is a necessity, so we are all committed to do this.”
Akabueze explained that a more stringent evaluation had been put in place to monitor the amount of resources available for Ministries, Department and Agencies of government.
He said this would help to reduce the gap between what was budgeted for and what the people received at the end of the year.
According to him, a greater use of technology is involved in the preparation of the 2017 budget and as such has made it possibly to standardise items of procurement.
He said: “This is another form of reforms, it is a continuous process and we hope that year after years, there will be improvement that we can report on.
“If ultimately, the budget implementation is improved, it will be for the benefit of all as we said earlier that the budget is not just the collection of numbers.
“It is a tool for delivering in government socio- economic growth and that is for the citizens.”
On his part, Dr. Joe Abah, Director-General, Bureau of Public Service Reforms, said the seminar was timely as it would afford the opportunity for the public to be abreast of the country’s budgetary control.
Abah said that the country was beginning to have standard prices for things to reduce excesses in governance.
Abah said: “The objective of this seminar is to bring people driving reforms to come and face the public and the people who are supposed to implement the reforms so that they can ask difficult questions.
“And to get to move on some things, we have been complaining that the budget implementation for 2016 has not been available and through this seminar, we have heard that it will be available tomorrow.
“This is one of the key achievements that it provides. More and more, we are having standard prices for things.
“The more we get standard cost for vehicles and stationeries, the less the discrepancies will be.”
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