2018 Budget: Another unfolding messy proposal
A public affairs analyst, Jide
Ojo, also told Sunday Sun that the yearly quagmire in the budgetary process
occurs due to lack of political will by the government to do things right.
He said: “For me, the problem is lack of political will to do the right
thing. We cannot say that we don’t have competent hands in a country of 180
million people that can deliver a sound, foolproof, and credible budgetary
process. But it’s like there is too much politicking in that process because of
inherent corruption. A lot of people want to take maximum advantage of that
exercise to enrich themselves, communities and cronies. I mean in all good
conscience, how could you say that a
country like Nigeria with experts in all spheres of human endeavour cannot
assemble a committee of experts that will plug and deal with all the issues we
perennially have with our budgetary process? We have been told that the 2018 budget is
allegedly padded. The bottom line is that those estimations are from the
executive. How did they come about them? Why is it that items are perennially
being repeated in the budget when they are not consumables? Why do you have
very bogus figures budgeted annually for the same things year in year in year
out? And by the time it gets to the legislators, they will also do their own
padding with the zonal intervention projects and all that. And where does that leave
the masses?” he queried.
Ojo said the trend causes a dislocation in the economy that leaves the
masses worse off despite huge capital votes in the budget every year. “This has
brought about a dislocation in the economy. We have so many uncompleted
projects across the country. We have over 11,000 uncompleted projects in this
country as we speak. The 11,000 I’m talking about were as at 2011/2012; I’m not
talking about the 2017 data. But the issue is that when capital releases come
late or there is no sufficient cash backing for projects, eventually it leads
to abandonment. And once you abandon projects
you are tying down your capital because the uncompleted project cannot yield
any productivity; it remains unproductive until it is completed and put to good
use. Many of them have turned out to be white elephant projects. So, invariably
there is a lot of socio-economic dislocation arising from flawed budgetary
process,” Ojo said.
He added: “Now, Nigeria is just exiting recession. So, we are not far
from suffering a relapse and sliding back into recession with the kind of
economic dislocation we currently have on our hands. We just heard that they
have released additional N750 billion to the initial N450bn for implementation of capital projects in 2017
budget. At what time of the year? The bottom line is that everything will now
be done in a rush. The attempt to go back to the January to December budget
cycle is a mirage. The NASS has come out to say that there is nothing they can
do to make the budget ready in January. So, we are now looking at the vicious
cycle of having the budget passed may be by April or May 2018,” he added.
To overcome the challenge, he called for an overhaul of the entire
budgetary process that must be rooted in total adherence to the provisions of
the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007. “We need to overhaul the entire budgetary
process from start to finish. There has to be total obedience to the provisions
of the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007. The Act provides that by
August/September, the Medium Term Expenditure Framework /Fiscal Strategy Paper
(MTEF/FSP) should be sent to the NASS and approved. After that, the president
will present the budget latest by October so that the legislators will have at
least three months to work on it and then pass it. I believe that if we start
obeying the Fiscal Responsibility Act, we will get it right. This year, the
MTEF/FSP was not sent to the NASS until early November and as at the time the
president presented the 2018 budget, the NASS was yet to finalise legislative
duties on the MTEF/FSP. I don’t know whether they have even passed it as we
speak. Also, under remittances by revenue generating MDAs should be checked and
there should be stiff penalties for defaulters, because those are monies
outside the Federation Account that cannot be appropriated for.
“All of these are causing so much overlap and confusion within the
system. So, we need to streamline things; we need to bring in the needed
expertise from wherever in the world to get things right and they don’t have to
be foreigners. We have Nigerians in the Diaspora that can be invited to come
and help us shape up the budgetary process if need be. We say we are doing zero
budgetary process and for the third year running, there is still so much
confusion associated with it. So, we need to streamline things. We need to make
scapegoats of those who are involved in budget padding. We need the political
will by the president and then the NASS to do the needful by putting Nigeria’s
interest first and not their own self-serving interest. That’s the only way
they can help this country,” Ojo noted.
The budgetary process has been a subject of controversy since the Buhari
administration came into life. Buhari had signed the first budget of his
administration on May 6, 2016 after months of bickering between the executive
and the legislature. Former Chairman of the Appropriation Committee of the
House of Representatives, Hon. Abdulmumini Jibrin, later raised allegations of
padding against the leadership of the House, leading to his suspension for a
period of 180 legislative sitting days in September 2016. The story was not too
different in 2017 as the Presidency had accused the NASS of introducing more
than 400 ‘strange projects’ into the budget while slashing allocations to key
federal agencies and projects before belatedly passing it in May. The
dissension over the 2018 budget is just beginning to unfold. Although the end
result cannot be foretold, Nigerians certainly hope the issue would be resolved
in the best interests of the country.
Follow me on twitter @jideojong
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