The cavalier attitude of the Presidency negates the cardinal place of the Federal budget in the life of every Nigerian. The philosophy of the leadership, rigors, priorities of vision are central to the federal budget and, therefore, are far more than economic projections. Were the document to be one of lofty vision with pragmatic persuasions and attendant implementation for scrupulous public good, the result would be the higher good for majority of Nigerians. The presidency is acting as if the $38 per barrel assumption of the arithmetic benchmark price for crude oil is more strategic than the confidence quotient in the assembling, codifying, implementation, value for money, monitoring, sanctioning that the President’s attitude and language should convey. This tardy attention to budget process implants fiscal and monetary policies that embarrass government and everyone else with growth indices sans human index growth in Nigeria.
The absurdities in the presidency alone include: rehabilitation and repairs of electricity (N1,652 trillion); wildlife conservation (N326 million); computer software acquisition (N268,9 million); general renovation of guest house ( N387,9 million); furnishing of guest house (N45 million). What is wildlife conservation in the State House that demands N326.084m? The list continues: upgrading of mechanical and electrical underground power line supplies to State House i(N272 million); linking of cable to driver’s rest room at Villa (N322 million); linking of cable from guest house No.9 Generator House to Gate (N213 million); installation of electrical lightings (N618 million); electrical installation of distribution boards and other cables (N191 million).
The frivolities were notched to higher levels of absurdity with purchase of BMW saloon cars (N3.63bn); purchase of 33-seater coaster buses (N158 m); 16-seater Toyota Hiace buses (N204 m); unnamed security equipment (N1.7bn); Muslim/Christian Pilgrimages (N500m); Muslim (N859.8m) and Christian (N945.8m) Pilgrims Boards. To drive home the point, consider the Millennium/Sustainable Development Goals (MDG/SDG), with less than N9bn. N1.5bn will be spent to monitor and evaluate MDG/SDG; communications and advocacy (MDG) reporting (N427m); Special Intervention on the MDGs (N1.468bn); transition to from MDG to SDG (N1.109bn); while N5.378 bn will finance SDG programs. This is insane and outrageous.
The most annoying thing about this squandermania is that, there is no provision for development. No provision for the future of Nigerians. A wanton consumption attitude is clearly the norm and it would be doubly tragic for the National Assembly to pass this spending plan. The indolence certainly stems from self-serving rash of statistics extolling the Nigerian economy, spewing curious inventory of positive macroeconomic success that hardly reflects the reality of Nigerian living conditions. How could Buhari propose a budget in which priority sectors for capital allocations like health, roads, education and capacity building, are discarded?
There is a task for the National Assembly, notwithstanding its own less than illustrious ranking in these matters, but endowed by the Law of Nigeria, to ensure that the feckless proposal put before it is amended to the benefit of the majority of the people. The APC ought to indicate to Nigerians that the feckless and nebulous fiscal decisions in these budget proposals are truly its covenant with voters and furthermore, in tandem with the party’s mantra of change.
Despite its potential for becoming a powerful, prosperous nation, Nigeria has aimlessly drifted, since its democratic rebirth, to become one of unimaginable depravity: a forsaken nation ridden with corruption and institutionalized banditry, a people dehumanized by widespread poverty and decrepit infrastructure; and one bedeviled by factional politics, thriving opportunism and heightened insecurity. This should worry all Nigerians, including President Buhari. And he certainly can do better than he has done in tackling these problems.
Given that jobs are not created at the banquet halls in Abuja but at the industrial estates, factories and farms around Nigeria, the aggregates in the budget have not shown preferred financing or fiscal incentives to entrepreneurs to match into in the solid minerals sector, agriculture, manufacturing as alluded to in the statements. Therefore, it is bland mouthing a job creation and real sector growth where the tools for capital formation are not worked out as a core imperative.
The budget process ought to be more than a ritual. The desperate situation of Nigeria calls for a budget philosophy that tackles corruption, waste, inefficiency and poor governance in all areas, a proposal that enthrones the culture of value for money. The current fad for technocrats to juggle arithmetic of a so-called zero-based budgeting system widely breeds corruption and distorts governance in the country. It is at the root of Legislature/Executive fight for bloated projects in the budget. Manifestations of inadequate and insensitive provisions of public funds are obvious in the nation’s budget documents. This 2016 appears to be no exception to the frequent pattern of financing scandals while genuinely desirable capital projects put up with inadequate funding and untimely cash releases.
The cost of the Federal Government is too excessive and cannot be sustained especially as government acknowledges reducing revenue in its projection for Medium Term Expenditure Framework. This budget proposal has not shown that this same President opened a number of decisions for downsizing the government. His committees showed hordes of duplicating agencies and parastatals without viability or value addition. It is curious that the necessary choices on these are still put at bay in the face of urgent resource realignments.
The take-off of the 2016 budget is for an indeterminate future in defiance of the President’s campaign avowal, to present early and have the National Assembly debate the budget in good time, and start implementation on January 1 as it ought to be. From the shoddy attitude of the Budget Office and the President’s embarrassing judgement, all is late about this Federal budget. The attendant multipliers and time lags portend unfavorable results all over the economic and social sectors. We are past mid-way point in the first month of the New Year and lawmakers are yet to begin deliberations on the budget. All of this is tacky and avoidable if the President identified with the yearnings of the people and adopted the budgeting process, in word and indeed, as his first responsibility tool for Nigeria.
Every member of the National Assembly represents not himself but Nigerians. Hardly is there a better opportunity to commence a reform attitude of budget officials and interrogate the practice and rites of the nation’s fiscal policy both at the Executive and National Assembly than now. The Federal budget ought to be a moral equivalent of a crusade in sectors and guides for economic and social growth for the year. The people should, therefore, wake up from a culture of complacency and ask for a people’s budget that transcends sloganeering. This is a redemption song the national assembly cannot ignore.