An Assessment of the Legal Framework of the Role of Legislature In Nigeria’s Budget Process

Abstract

The budget is the most crucial instrument for economic management and the vehicle for achieving government’s public policy goals. It is an important governance issue which has very negative effects on administration when not properly managed. Succinctly, there are extant laws that empower the legislature and confer upon them certain responsibilities over the National purse; hence, the study titled “An Assessment of the legal framework of the role of legislature in Nigeria’s budget process” to examine the adequacy of existing constitutional and other framework in place to guarantee the role of the legislature in budgeting. Although, there has been significant increase in literature on the subject matter especially since the beginning of the fourth republic in Nigeria but only few of these studies have focused on the role of the National Assembly in budget process. This study adopted the ex-post facto research design which rely solely on relevant information sourced from the survey of journals, articles, textbooks, archival documents, National Assembly’s official documents among others for data collection. Examining the effectiveness of National Assembly in budgeting was sourced from secondary data which are arguments advanced by scholars on the importance of establishing the roles of the National Assembly in the budget process. Evaluation of adequacy of existing constitutional and legal framework that guaranteed the involvement of legislature in the budget process was obtained from the 1999 constitution and other legal documents. Factors hindering the National Assembly from performing effectively its functions in the budget circle were sourced from official documents and existing literature. Proffered solutions to ameliorate the impact of the identified impending factors to the effectiveness of the legislature in budgeting were collated views and arguments advanced by scholars who first identified the problem and also proffered solution; thus, all these data were critically analyzed with the content analysis measure. Findings shows that there was currently adequacy of existing constitutional and other legal frameworks in place to guarantee the involvement of the National Assembly in the budget process. It also indicated that the National Assembly is a very important actor in the budget process in Nigeria; as the national budget will not take effect without the approval of the nation’s apex legislative assembly. Furthermore, it established that there were avalanche of challenges hindering the National Assembly from effectively performing its functions. Consequently, this study recommended separation of powers between the executive and legislature, where there is synergy, cooperation, bridging communication gaps and closing ranks before the appropriation bill is formally presented, during enactment, implementation and evaluation to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings in the passage of the appropriation bill. In conclusion, it acknowledged the importance of budgeting as a significant instrument of fiscal policy; it also reiterated the tripartite mandate of the legislature and its crucial role in budgeting. Suffice to say, there were adequate existing constitutional and legal framework in place to guarantee the involvement of the National Assembly in the budget process. However, there were challenges identified as impediments to the effective performance of the legislature and solutions were proffered to curb the challenges.