BudgIT Foundation has decried the cut in Nigeria’s health and education sector budgetary allocation to fund the 2019 elections. They alleged that recent information from the National Assembly suggests that the 2018 budget was undergoing virement that will re-allocate the meagre resources meant to improve the condition of health and education sectors for the conduct of the 2019 elections. Nigeria, at the IMF/World Bank Group Annual Meetings in Bali Indonesia received damning assessment from the World Bank Group on its education, health policies and development, describing them as very poor.
The development affirmed the long-standing argument about dearth of skills among the country’s human capital, huge medical tourism that had eaten deep into external reserves and high dependence on aids and donors to fund health-related projects. Noting the poor budget allocations to both sectors against the 20 per cent by Indonesia, and the woeful outcome with concomitant effects on the goal of raising adequate human capital, the bank said it was a big disappointment for the rest of sub-Saharan Africa.
The group’s president, Jim Yong Kim, gave the verdict while unveiling the 2018 Human Capital Index at the ongoing yearly meetings with International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Nusa Dua, Indonesia.He decried the country’s “poor show” with huge out-of-school children (about 13.5 million) and the 152nd position among 157 countries in the index, stating that the situation was not only a setback for Nigeria, but also disappointing for the region that looks up to it.
In press statement sent by its Human Resources Manager, Mr Niyi Soleye and signed by the Communications Lead, BudgIT, said: “The consensus is that Nigeria is underfunding the health sector – and the immediate goal of government was to raise budgetary allocation to 15 percent of total budget size. Rather, the virement hopes to take away N8.05 billion from the health sector. It is disheartening that political actors will ignore the growing numbers of people losing lives due to the poor state of Nigeria’s health sector.
“The cut in the education sector allocation is also a case in point. Policies, strategies, and effective budgeting practices needed to meet the needs of students, attract qualified teachers, and develop industry-centric curriculums especially in the public education system are critical at this time,” they stated. Continuing, they argued that Nigeria’s population growth was a serious pressure point with children under 15 years of age accounting for 45 per cent of the 186 million population, the burden of education could become overwhelming and quality which is abysmal could drop even lower.
Reacting to the situation, the BudgIT’s Principal Lead, Gabriel Okeowo said: the continuous apathetic attitude of government towards key sectors that impact most on human development and especially the rights of children was gradually ravaging the future of the nation. “Almost everyone in government and out of government agrees that Nigeria’s education sector is poorly funded. It is thus shocking that despite the meagre allocation seen in the 2018 budget, attempts are now been made to even slash budgetary allocation to the education sector even further by N10.2 billion to fund the 2019 elections.” Government across all levels, executive and legislature in particular have consistently demonstrated a lack of commitment to improve the life of the average Nigerian. Priority has always been given to key areas of the budget that affects the legislature.
“Nigeria’s legislative arm is one of the highest funded in the world and their budget is given a statutory priority which implies that key budgetary allocations that are pro-poor takes a backseat. This for us at BudgIT is unacceptable and in fact a demonstration of insensitivity on the part of the legislature especially at such a time when the country is reported to be the poverty capital of the world. Sectoral allocation to education, health and social interventions should not be sacrificed for the elections.” Okeowo observed that areas within the 2018 budget like the over bloated budget of the National Assembly was not touched, adding that even if the Executive made the proposal to cut critical funding to vire election expenses, the National Assembly should search within and apply cuts to their budget, fulfilling their powers within the appropriation framework.
“It is thus incumbent that the virement made to the 2018 budget on certain sectors be rejected by all. With currently terrible health and education indicators and a recent report by OXFAM puts Nigeria at last position out of 157 countries on the “Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index”. We believe actions such as this to severely cut funding in social investments are expanding the inequality gap in Nigeria and needs to be addressed,” he stated.
