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| Budget |
Govt promises better deal for citizens in 2017
The controversy over
performance of the 2016 budget is just the latest in a series of government’s
failed efforts at infrastructure building in the last 18 years despite
ambitious budgets totaling ₦53 trillion within the period.
The
Guardian Nigeria report continues:
The
nation’s yearly budget, which started from a modest expenditure plan of ₦948
billion (US$3.2billion) — apart from supplementary requests — in 1999,
consistently grew to ₦6.06 trillion (US$19.9 billion) this year. The Federal
Government plans to spend more than ₦7 trillion next year.
Experts
have said that the combination of frivolous and fictitious heads and
duplication of items in budgets have remained major challenges, leading to poor
performance, the huge budget provisions notwithstanding.
Besides,
high recurrent votes, which partly was paid out to “carefully crafted ghost
worker scheme”, non-implementation of capital votes as planned and abandonment
of projects after mobilization, helped to bring the country down.
Out
of the ₦53 trillion, the country has budgeted ₦33.2 trillion in the last seven
years, with recurrent expenditures averaging 72 per cent, leaving 28 per cent
for capital votes.
But
going by the projections of the stakeholders, an average of ₦900 billion yearly
has been made in the last 17 years, while the recent fall into recession showed
that it was not really invested.
An
economist and fiscal governance campaigner, Dr. Uzochukwu Anakom, while speaking
on the 2017-2019 Medium Term Expenditure Framework, noted that the shoddy work
depicts how budgets over the years were used to under-develop the country.
“The
macroeconomic targets and figures make no sense to an average Nigerian and can
be subject to as many interpretations as there are Nigerians. It commits the
government to nothing.
“It
raises several questions- what is the inflation target in the next three fiscal
years? Will interest be in the single or double digits for it to be consistent
with economic growth that can move Nigeria out of recession? Essentially, there
are no projections for interest rate and lending to the economy.’’
The
immediate past Director-General of Bureau of Public Procurement, Emeka Eze,
said that the number of government projects currently abandoned across the
country stood at 19,000 as at May this year.
He
said that besides duplication of office buildings, personnel and overhead cost,
there was the tendency for each agency of government to assert its authority in
procurement process.
The
result, according to experts, has been poor execution or outright non-execution
of projects after mobilization, as well as over-pricing of projects, after
delays in preparation and presentation, inconsistencies in timeframe and
questionable figures.
Head
of Association of Chartered Certified Accountants of Nigeria, Mrs. Oluwatoyin
Ademola, said, “The duplications and ambiguous sub-heads in budgets show lack
of transparency and poor processes. It is a pitiable situation for the country,
given its place among the nations.
“Truly,
if there’s a system and procedures, somebody should see something wrong in this
development and somebody must be responsible and held responsible too.”
Labour
and the Private sector yesterday described government’s capital expenditure in
the last two decades as ‘waste,’ because it failed to lift the country’s
physical development beyond the military era. Labour particularly expressed
disappointment that Nigerians have continued to get the short end of the stick from
their leaders despite ambitious budgets.
Education,
Health and general infrastructure have continued to suffer setback, according
to the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and there are concerns that the 2017
income and expenditure plan may also fail to build infrastructure and create
the needed jobs. It means recession could last longer. “It is a waste of
economic resources; budgets have not been productive because it is a way of
putting money in the pockets of politicians — the rich grows richer and the
poor gets poorer,” Comrade Idowu Adelakan, who chairs the Lagos chapter of the
labour union, said.
Secretary-General
of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Musa Lawal, said previous budgets have not
been productive due to lack of effective planning by government, which often
planned for the short term.
As
President Muhammadu Buhari presented the 2017 budget to the National Assembly
yesterday, professionals charged the Presidency to ensure that the proposed
income and expenditure plan does not suffer setback as the 2016 budget.
Experts,
who spoke under the auspices of the Association of Professional Bodies of
Nigeria (APBN) in Abuja yesterday, said the lessons learnt from the failure of
2016 budget should be positive reminder government officials to be careful in
discharging their responsibilities. This, the body noted, is key to building
confidence in the system.
In
a statement at the end of its board meeting held in Abuja, President of the
Association, Dr. Omede Idris, noted that navigating through the current
recession requires genuine concern by all Nigerians.
Speaking
on the recent collapse of a church in Uyo, National President of the
Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria (AMLSN), Toyosi Raheem,
called on the Federal Government to strengthen professional regulatory bodies
in Nigeria to enable them perform their duties effectively.
The
Federal Government said it had spent over ₦3.577 trillion out of the full-year ₦6,
060 trillion budget legislated for the 2016 fiscal year. The amount it also said
translates to a 79 per cent implementation or performance level of the prorated
budget for the three quarters up to September 30 in the 2016 budget.
According
to the Ministry of Budget and National Planning, a total of ₦1,137.7 trillion
has also been paid out in domestic and foreign debt service expenditures during
the period captured. The Federal Government also said that in addition to the ₦2,439.9
trillion so far released for capital, non-debt recurrent and service-wide vote
expenditures, a total of ₦1,137.7 trillion has also been paid out in domestic
and foreign debt service expenditures. This includes ₦44 billion transferred to
the Sinking Fund to retire maturing obligations on bonds issued to contractors.
The
minister had also explained that although the 2016 Budget was well conceived,
with reasonably conservative benchmarks, it recorded unanticipated revenue
shortfalls along the line due to militancy in the oil-producing Niger Delta
region, a development, which seriously affected projected oil production levels
for the fiscal year.
President
of the Senate Abubakar Bukola Saraki yesterday said lawmakers would critically
review the contents of the revised Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and
the Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP with a view to producing a very realistic budget
for the 2017 fiscal year.
He said the Senate would not rubber-stamp the decisions of the executive arm of government as far as the task of preparing the budget was concerned. And, as part of efforts to get the country out of the current economic recession, the Federal Government yesterday revealed plans to explore new streams of revenues to fund the 2017 budget.
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