Experts have called for the need to cut down frivolous and inappropriate estimates amounting to over N227 billion in the 2022 appropriation bill.
This follows the current economic and fiscal crisis in Nigeria, where retained revenue simply pays for debt service and the bulk of the resources required for personnel, overhead and capital expenditure are sourced through borrowings.
According to the N16.39 trillion budget presented to the National Assembly for approval by President Muhammadu Buhari, the expenditure framework shows that recurrent spending is estimated at N6.83 trillion, capital expenditure is pegged at N5.35 trillion and debt servicing at N3.61 trillion, while the projected aggregate revenue available to fund the budget is pegged N10.13 trillion.
Experts speaking on the nature of some line items budgeted for by ministries and agencies of the Federal Government said most projects were unclear and frivolous in nature.
For example, under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the sums of N745,920,000, N3,360,000,000, N1,911,550,616 were budgeted for the provision and installation of solar powered street light in rural communities, construction of feeder roads in rural communities in the six geopolitical zones and support for infrastructure, projects and coordination services, respectively, without clear details on location and project description.
The ministry also earmarked N630,000,000 and N1,304,340,621 for construction of public toilets in public schools and markets, and provision of potable water in rural communities, without specific locations, among others.
Similarly, the Ministry of Works and Housing has sums of money allocated to projects without proper details or specification, among these are N2,277,730,186 budgeted for the construction of classrooms, N1,056,845,948 earmarked for the construction of skill acquisition centres as well as N985,476,759 for the construction of primary healthcare centres, all without locations.
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Under the Ministry of Labour and Employment, N108,186,724 was budgeted for media coverage and propagation of departmental/unit activities, N120,067,755 for sensitization, awareness creation and publicity on the mandate of the activities of the ministry, and N119,100,000 for the provision of media coverage and publicity of the official activities of the ministers, which appears to serve the self-same purpose, among others.
Commenting on the estimates of the budget, Eze Onyekpere, convener and chairman of the Centre for Social Justice, notes that specificity in budget allocation is imperative for the improvement of the status of the poor and vulnerable group, as it will provide answers to questions of the citizens.
According to Onyekpere, playing on words and providing estimates for the same activity under different names are the norm in so many ministries and government agencies.
“The meagre resources allocated to the Ministry of Works and Housing has been thinly spread across hundreds of projects to the extent that money will be spent without any concrete improvement in the road or housing stock. In the interim, the National Assembly should prune down the number of projects and focus on a few which can be improved upon from available resources.
“The provision of over N260 billion in Service Wide Votes for special interventions and poverty reduction is worrisome. Over the years, there is no evidence of benefits to the population accruing from these votes but authorities insist on continuing a practice without visible benefits,” he states.
Speaking further, he notes that while several programmes in the ministries, departments and agencies have received multi-year funding for skill acquisition and employment creation, it is imperative to demand for reports of achievement in terms of outputs and outcomes.
“There are no locations and identifiable class of beneficiaries in so many projects of the MDAs, the proposed beneficiaries are at large and so wide and there are no decipherable selection criteria considering that the requested amount cannot go round all persons.
“The National Assembly before approval of this budget should insist on locations, qualification criteria of proposed beneficiaries and report of previous achievements.
“Tradermoni, Farmermoni and Marketmoni are simply a demonstration of lack of capacity in engaging the poverty challenge in Nigeria. They are not sustainable and no one is paying back.
They are from borrowed funds. Borrowing money and wasting the same on ventures that cannot contribute to its repayment at a time when debt service is consuming virtually all retained revenue,” he states.
Corroborating Onyekpere, Patrick Chibuzor, a lecturer of the Department of Finance, Covenant University, cites the N82,000,000 budgeted for the purchase of SUV for the managing director of the News Agency of Nigeria, stating that the budget is full of line items that do not have any benefit for the ordinary Nigerian.
“There are a lot of estimates in the 2022 budget that just do not make sense. At a time when Nigeria is battling insecurity and poor road infrastructure, ministries of government are wanting to spend public funds on irrelevant projects.
“At the end of the day, inappropriate allocation gulp monies that are supposed to be spent on infrastructure, while we keep borrowing,” he says.
Chijioke Ekechukwu, former director-general of the Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry, decries that unclear items in budgets promote corruption in governance.
According to Ekechukwu, “In this country, one of our problem is budget monitoring. Nobody checks what is put in the budget and this is what leads to misappropriation of public funds.
“A budget that is not clear promote corruption. We need to re-orient ourselves on budget presentation and monitoring.”
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