As the 2024 budget preparation commences, BudgIT, a Nigerian civic organisation, has highlighted ten major pitfalls President Bola Tinubu must avoid in preparing the budget.
The organisation said in a recent report that the budget needs to be drawn from a plan, not treated like a contract vending machine and that the National Assembly shouldn’t be left out of the document preparation process.
“Strengthen budget credibility for inclusive growth and service delivery, bring infrastructure up to speed: minimal capital expenditure growth vis-a-vis recurrent expenditure and open contempt of the Federal budget by state-owned enterprises,” the report said.
It said in gender-blind budgeting, the government should create a proper sex-disaggregated gender-responsive budget.
“Budgeting over the years has been gender unintentional; for a country striving towards achieving development goals, gender equity is a cross-cutting factor influencing each of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and can only be achieved through gender-responsive governance and gender-responsive budgeting,” said Oludamilola Onemano, research and gender analyst at BudgIT.
Other recommendations are strengthening accountability and transparency through timeliness to avoid delayed budget cycles and improving budget performance through systematic monitoring and evaluation.
“Combating budget padding for transparent governance in Nigeria’s 2023 budget discontinues assigning projects to MDAs without the mandate to implement them.”
Authors of the report said the country has had a history of misallocating scarce resources through the budget and wasteful spending, resulting in the worst human development indices and creating fiscal space for state capture.
“As the 2024 budget process begins in earnest, President Tinubu must pay attention to certain things that have caused the federal government budget, despite enormous resources allocated and spent, to fail in meeting the country’s development goals, reducing poverty, creating jobs, and fostering inclusive broad-based economic growth.
Last week, the budget office of the federation embarked on 2024 preparation training, principally on the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System Budget Preparation Subsystem, for all Ministries, Departments, and Agencies. The government plans to submit the budget in October 2023.
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Ben Akabueze, director general of the Budget Office of the Federation, said the training session underscores the budget office’s determination to enhance fiscal discipline and accountability in managing public funds.
“This crucial training is aimed at enhancing your collective capacity to effectively use the budget preparation subsystem of the government-integrated financial management information system in the budget preparation process,” he said.
He said the GIFMIS budget preparation subsystem training programme provides participants with the tools and knowledge required to facilitate its budgetary processes.
“This technology-driven system enhances our efficiency, minimises bottlenecks, and enhances accountability.”
