Unending reign of frivolity

THE word “frivolous” implies something that has no serious purpose or value, and in the context of the national budget, it becomes anything that has no developmental effect, especially in this period of high borrowing aimed at delivering the economy from the shackles of inactivity. Yearly, the menace and scam has been perpetrated with inexplicable terms, repetitions, and mind boggling sums cutting across from the agencies to the Presidency. Sometimes, some of the expenditure proposals cannot be supported by any high level national plan or policy. These frivolities ignore the pressing problems and challenges, while providing for the fancy, whims and caprices of the budget crafters. The inappropriate provisions also are not suitable or proper, given the present circumstances. They are short of policy goals declared by the government.

Unclear provisions are deliberately crafted by Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAS), to deceive the uninitiated and sail through given the volume of the document, as many who would have shown interest are discouraged ab initio by numerous pages made of the national plan.

Already, about N219.4billion has been identified as resources to be saved and reprogrammed by the National Assembly, if only the lawmakers will do the needful for the common good.

The Lead Director, Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), Eze Onyekpere, while speaking with The Guardian, said the strategy is made to confuse, and most times, the provisions do not have any fixed meaning, without clear activities, services, goods, construction and deliverables that any reasonable person can understand.

“In the age of ‘ Buy Made in Nigeria’, most MDAS are insistent on buying foreign products and brands, and even have the temerity to put the foreign brands in the budget when there are equally good locally made alternatives. This is more pronounced in the quest for foreign SUVS,” he said.

For the Budgit, a civic organisation that applies technology to intersect citizen engagement with institutional improvement, to facilitate societal change, the 2018 plan is masked with several opaque administrative items as capital projects just to shore up the percentage of capital component.

In the 2018 budget proposal, there are huge provisions for cleaning and fumigation and subscription to professional bodies, which are obviously bogus, while the yearly ritual of buying computers and computer software remained large in almost all the government agencies. Specifically, from the Office of the National Security Adviser, over N1.14billion was proposed for cleaning and fumigation services. This sounds outrages for a mention, and in the usual budget process, it will go through without further inquisition to know how many “estates” are involved in this sanitation and “chemical bath”.

Similarly, the Directorate of State Security Service came up with a N2.2billion proposal tagged, “Social Media Mining Suite.”

These proposals need further explanation and interrogation to determine the appropriateness and purpose of this vote.

These raise more posers: Should the government be buying computers and software every year? What happened to previously acquired computers and software? At the State House, Presidential Villa, there are large requests for yearly maintenance, repairs, and rehabilitation far in excess of the reasonable needs of the Villa. This tradition is followed by a number of MDAS.

The State House, Lagos Liaison Office, put in a request tagged Maintenance of Office Building/residential Quarters for N31million and another, “Rehabilitation/repairs of Office Buildings for N145.8million. What is the difference between the two provisions by the agency?

It is regrettable that a budget head like Service Wide Vote still remains in the national fiscal plan years after the Oronsaye Committee instituted by the same Federal Government declared it illegal and wasteful. Since then, its appropriations have not been below N300billion yearly, and there has not been any physical evidence of its accomplishments, even under the current administration.

Out of this provision for 2018, an item tagged, National Planning Commission (Infrastructure Master Plan) will get N1.2billion. This is despite the fact that there is a full ministry with the same name. What part of the Infrastructure Master Plan is to be implemented with this vote? This is a regular vote every year and lawmakers should call NPC to give an account of what they did with the vote in the last two years. Onyekpere noted that “The huge vote of N51.75billion for social development goals (SDGS) calls for vigilance and proper oversight on the part of the legislature after approval. For over 13 years, this type of vote had been approved without Nigerians getting value and improvement in their lives for the large sums of money.

“Some MDAS simply played on words like ‘empowerment’, ‘capacity building’ and ‘human capital development’ to request for large sums of money. But the word empowerment is devoid of specificity. It is hanging and must be contextualised. Also, capacity building ought to be done within the context of developing specific competencies. Again, there are many requests for research and development, which are hanging and not specifically tied to any deliverables,” he added.

Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation repeated the fumigation conundrum for N106.8million, and added “Subscription to Professional Bodies”, N208million; and “Computer Software Acquisition” for N170million. How large is this office? How many persons are deployed in this office that pays annual dues and at what rate? What happened to previously acquired software, which is procured yearly?

The Programme Officer, Environment, CSJ, Martins Eke, observed that the proposals of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development are suffused with large sums of money without specifics and details, and if not properly clarified, Nigerians will be in the dark as to what these sums of money are voted for. “Promotion and development of rice value chain for instance, states nothing about the activities, goods and services to be delivered with billions of Naira. This means that citizens cannot be reasonably expected to monitor projects they do not know about. This is not a good way to craft a budget. Transparency, which leads to accountability, is imperative to make these proposals reasonable. “Nigeria is still planning to build a nuclear power plant, when we lack the capacity to manage it. This is coming at a time major world powers are decommissioning their nuclear power plants. It makes no sense, and it is suicidal to continue this quest,” he argued. The Communications Lead at Budgit, Abiola Afolabi, said about 42.9 per cent of Capital Projects in the 2018 proposed budget only looked like it, but has no direct impact on citizens.

Corroborating a recent analysis by Budgit, he told The Guardian that approximately N744.48billion of the N2.65trillion capital allocation will go into administrative items, which include the procurement of cars, retrofitting of government offices, trainings, consultancies, purchase of furniture, and computers and so on.

Given that the funds marked for capital expenditure will be largely borrowed (as highlighted in the proposed 2018 budget), it is dis-