Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) has published N227 billion frivolous line items in the 2022 proposed Federal Government Budget that can save the country the amount if expunged by the National Assembly from the budget proposal. President Muhammadu Buhari had presented the N16.39 trillion 2022 Budget on 7 October 2021, to the Joint Session of the National Assembly. However, CSJ in the publication titled: “Frivolous, Inappropriate, Unclear And Wasteful Estimates In The 2022 Federal Appropriation Bill” said Nigeria’s revenue is simply inadequate to fund fundamental expenditure. According to the Lead Director CSJ, Eze Onyekpere, “Every available fund should be spent with the greatest value for money, tied to a high-level national policy framework and aimed at improving livelihoods, growing the economy, reducing poverty and inequality, adding value, etc.
“It is against this background that the pullout of frivolous, inappropriate, unclear and wasteful expenditure calls the attention of the executive, legislature, private sector, civil society including the media to these frivolities at a time of grave national crisis,” he said. Onyekpere quoted the 2022 Budget Call Circular as directing that “resources are to be allocated based on actual needs, in line with the immediate needs of the country as well as government’s developmental objectives and priorities.” Starting from the Presidency’s State House Headquarters, the pullout calls on the leadership to lead by example. Spending billions of naira every year on routine maintenance of State House facilities is a huge waste. All statutory transfers are stated as lump sum provisions without details.
“No person, government agency or organisation has the right in a constitutional democracy to spend public funds in a way and manner that is unknown to the ultimate sovereigns, being the taxpayers and citizens. The National Assembly (NASS) is called upon to review its estimates and reduce same by not less than 25% to free up resources for other important needs of the economy. This will amount to an allocation of N100.5billion and savings of N35.5bn,” he said. He added that the votes of the Ministry of Agriculture are suffused with vague, unclear bulk provisions for activities without locations which have no clear deliverables. He urged the National Assembly to insist on the details and that these details should be written into the estimates before approval. The Centre also noted that the provision of over N260 billion in Service Wide Votes for special interventions and Poverty reduction is worrisome.
According to CJS “Over the years, there is no evidence of benefits to the population accruing from these votes. But the authorities insist on continuing a practice without visible benefits. Several programmes in many MDAs have received multi-year funding for skill acquisition and employment creation. “It is imperative to demand for reports of achievements in terms of outputs and outcomes and the value for money statement of previous investments. Otherwise, this is a waste of public resources. When you compare the level of unemployment and the votes in several MDAs in previous years, it will be clear that either this kind of votes have been mismanaged or have not been invested as proposed. There are no locations and identifiable class of beneficiaries in so many projects in MDAs including Niger Delta, Labour and Productivity, Water Resources, etc. The proposed beneficiaries are at large and so wide and there are no decipherable selection criteria considering that the requested amount cannot go round all persons belonging to these generic groups. NASS should insist on locations, qualification criteria of proposed beneficiaries and reports of previous achievements.
“The 12 River Basin Development Authorities sit on thousands of acres of public land. For instance, the estimate of N50m was requested for clearing of the 5,000ha farmland in Auchi, Edo State by the Benin Owena RBDA. They get allocations for tractors, farm equipment, implements, fish and livestock replenishment, seeds, processing machinery and implements, etc. RBDAs should be revenue centres that remit billions of Naira to FGN instead of the current approach where they gulp money without any meaningful contribution to the revenue. At a minimum, RBDAs should be compelled to fund their personnel and recurrent expenditure pending when they are fully weaned of public funding,” the Centre for Social Justice said in the report. On the Review of the 2022 Appropriation Bill Parametres and Key Issues, CSJ commended the federal government for the early presentation of the budget on October 7th 2021 as it will give the legislature sufficient time to conclude the approval before the New Year.
“However, there is the need to amend the Constitution to provide for early budget presentation and approval,” the Centre said. Some key challenges arising from the budget speech and the proposals according the review done by the CSJ include “The poor performance of the revenue projections in 2021 (January – August) at -27.3% of aggregate revenue including government-owned enterprise (GOEs) and -32.2% being retained revenue excluding GOEs, which followed the trends in 2019 and 2020 financial years. The recurring deficit (N6.26 trillion which represents 3.39% of GDP) and in excess of the 3% rule in section 12 of the Fiscal Responsibility (FRA) as amended in the Finance Act of 2020, which states that aggregate expenditure can only exceed the ceiling imposed by the FRA when there is a clear and present threat to national security or sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The dependence on sovereign debts of N5.02 trillion to finance key infrastructure and budgetary provisions. This is the result of the failure to activate key domestic resource mobilisation mechanisms, utilize existing ones, block leakages and fiscal drainers and build the fiscal architecture needed to harness the economic potentials, resources and energy of the Nigerian people for development.
“The relatively poor performance of MDAs capital expenditure over the years including the year 2021 fiscal year. As at August 2021, the capital budget has underperformed by -34%. However, the aggregate capital expenditure inclusive of GOE capital expenditure underperformed by -47.1%. The continued failure to provide the details of Statutory Transfers and big votes in the Service Wide Votes (SWV) and simply stating them as lump sums. This is against the rules of fiscal responsibility as no MDA or authority in a constitutional democracy is authorised to spend public resources in a way and manner that is unknown to the citizens who are the ultimate sovereigns. The poor performance of crude oil production in 2021 which averaged 1.4mbpd and lower than the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)+ quota.”
