There are indications that slow releases of capital expenditures to Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs) are gradually crippling governance and economic development, across the country.
This has also fuelled growing concerns over the increasing number of government projects that are being abandoned.
These concerns, coming ahead of the 2019 general election, have also forced heads of Ministries, Parastatals and Agencies (MDAs) to resort to other sustain their operations.
In the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) for instance, indications emerged, weekend, that the implementation of the 2018 budget has been kept on hold, a situation that has grounded both capital and statutory activities of the administration.
BusinessDay investigations revealed that the November 2018 staff salaries are in an indeterminate state, as the FCTA is said to have exhausted its 2017 statutory budget.
Only recently, President Muhammmadu Buhari signed into law the 2018 budget of N371.532 billion for the FCT.
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Olumide Olademije, Coordinator of Good Governance Initiative, in a recent statement revealed that the FCT Administration has exhausted its 2017 statutory budget and ongoing capital projects are on hold due to the non – release of the 2018 budget.
Olademije said “it is shocking that the 2018 FCT budget has not been released in November,” adding that “we are still talking about the release of 2018 budget, and everybody is silent about it. As we speak, nobody can tell you categorically the state of FCT budget.
“Our investigation shows that activities in the administration are grounded and salaries for civil servants in the month of November are in limbo. We have moved round the territory, and discovered that previous ongoing capital projects are in a flat mode.,’’Olumide explained.
“Nothing seems to be working due to non-release of the budget. Whether we like it or not, performance in governance is tied to provision and release of the budget,’’ he added.
Another Senior Staff of FCTA Budget Secretariat confided in BusinessDay that “the non-release of the 2018 budget up to this moment has slowed down everything, as Capital Projects proposed in this year’s budget are just there on paper while the day-to-day administration is greatly affected.”
He said work have not commenced on the 27 critical infrastructure projects including, the B6, B12 and circle roads traversing the National Stadium, Villa and back to the stadium captured in the budget.
“Others are the Greater Abuja Water Works project as well as the Extension of Inner Southern Expressway (ISEX) from the Central Bank/National Christian Centre to Galadimawa Roundabout.
“Provisions totalling N1.2 billion were also made for the infrastructure development at major satellite towns of Kubwa, Karshi and Bwari to help remove the weight of expansion being witnessed in the city,” he disclosed.
Amongst other agencies of government likely to be impacted negatively by the development is the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, whose budget is yet to be released and according to inside Sources, this portends danger for the conduct of the 2019 general elections.
The non-release of budget to INEC up to now raised serious concern as to the possibility of getting smart card readers and other materials in the first week of December as earlier announced by the
Commission’s Chairman, Mahmud Yakubu. Yakubu had disclosed that, “as for the procurement processes, we have already initiated action. We have been consistent with the public procurement Act and awarded the contract for the procurement that we needed to make, basically the sensitive materials, ballot boxes, smart card readers, the permanent voter cards, cubicles and components for the enhancement of the smart card reader. Our hope is that by the first week of December all these components will be delivered to the commission”.
While Rotimi Lawrence, Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, was yet to respond to enquiries on the non-release of the budget and purchase of the election materials, a Senior Staff of the Commission who pleaded for anonymity, hinted that with the budget not released up to today, there is no way INEC would take delivery of Card Readers and the other materials in the first week of December.
Some of the experts who spoke to BusinessDay on the delay expressed sadness on how the leadership of the country pays less attention to major issues on national development, such as education, health, human empowerment, and security.
According to them, the country has recorded consistent decline in the value the government place on education.
They cited inadequate funding allocation to the various sectors including education sector, adding that this remains a challenge to achieving effectiveness and challenges our ability to implement most educational policies.
“The ongoing ASUU strike is also a decision made due to poor funding of the Nigeria universities,” one of them pointed out.
This is just as Stephen Ocheni, Minister of State for Labour and Employment, has called for improved budgetary allocation for effective implementation of the ministry’s mandates.
Speaking with BusinessDay in Abuja, Ocheni said this would help the Ministry to better fulfil its mandates.
Ocheni said the activities of the Ministry are necessary for the economic growth of the country as they affect the most important factor of production, which is Human capital. He added that the
Ministry needs to play greater roles in the development of skills for the nation’s teeming workforce, which is expected to build the Nigeria of our dream.
Abayomi Akinbo, a former project officer with ‘ ‘BudgiT’, a nongovernmental organisation that focuses on budget
implementation, told BusinessDay that the executive and the
Legislature have to find a common ground on issues regarding budgeting.
“Our budget cycles have really not been commendable. Noting that the budget cycle starts in May, he added that there has been inconsistency on the part of the government. ‘‘If you recall, the Executive sometime last year came up with the ‘Organic budget Law’ idea, which would enable a budget cycle run from January to December on a full calendar year. However, that has not been achieved,” Akinbo said.
Continuing, he stressed that the Ministries and Departments and Agencies of the government should defend their budgets early enough. According to him, it is not only the National Assembly that should be asked to be alive to its responsibilities. Even the MDAS should also sit up, he said. ‘‘You recall last time, the Legislature was almost begging them to come and defend their budgets.’’
Akinbo said that the nation should give attention to the Medium Term Expenditure Framework to prepare earlier ground for the budget.
Late passage budgets or piecemeal lease of fund affects the achievement of targets set for the year, Akinbo pointed out. ”The health programmes such as reducing maternal and child death and immunisation issues, all of them are tied to this budget, and when funds are not released early enough, you see the ripple effects on maternal deaths, poor education funding and others because of late and low releases.”
An official of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, who did not want to be identified, also decried the poor funding of the agricultural sector, describing it as “too low.”
“When we consider that poverty is our major problem, and that 60 percent of the poor are farmers, it is impossible to eradicate poverty while neglecting the farmers,’’ the official said.
He added that ‘‘poor funding and delay in release of funds contributes to inability of the sector to meet domestic food requirement and inability to export at quality levels required for market success,’’ adding that the government would only be paying lip service to agriculture if under-funding continues.
Ndidi Mbah, the General Manager, Public Affairs at the Transmission Company of Nigeria told BusinessDay that so far the TCN has resorted to using donor funds to finance its projects, because government funds don’t come early.
She said however that since most of the company’s projects are largely tied to specific donor projects, it does not have major worries if the budgets are delayed.
“We need to be ahead in our Transmission rehabilitation and expansion projects and that is why we continuously execute our projects through the support of the African Development Banks, Japan International Cooperation Agency, and the World Bank Projects.’’ This explains the fact that TCN has been able to go on with its grid expansion without any hitches, she explained.
James Kwen, Kehinde Akintola, Harrison Edeh Ndubuisi, Owede Agbajileke, Cynthia Egboboh, Abuja
