CSJ: 2018 Budget Contains Frivolous, Unclear, Wasteful Expenditure Items

The 2018 Budget proposal currently before the National Assembly is replete with frivolous, unclear, and wasteful expenditure items, the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), has said.

CSJ stated that the N8. 612 trillion budget expenditure which represents a 16 per cent increase over the 2017 figure; retained revenue of N6.607 trillion, being a 30 per cent increase over the 2017 estimates and a deficit of N2.005 trillion lacks what it described as a big picture of the 2018 budget projections.

The Convener of CSJ, Mr. Eze Onyekpere, who unveiled the budget proposals at a civil society organisations summit in Abuja under the aegis of Citizens Wealth Platform (CWP) stated that the budget estimates contain frivolous, unclear and wasteful expenditure that are of no value to the nation and its citizens.

Onyekpere noted that key assumptions include the benchmark price of $45 per barrel of crude oil, daily production of 2.3 million barrels per day (mbpd) and an average exchange rate N305 to 1USD, projected real GDP of 3.5 per cent and inflation rate of 12.4 per cent.

The projected expenditure of N8.612 trillion, although high in naira terms amounts to a paltry $28.24 billion and when divided by 180 million Nigerians amounts to a per capita federal expenditure of N47,844.44, he argued.

“The budget like the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) should be anchored on high level national policies and planning frameworks such as Vision 2020 and its implementation plans or the recently approved Economic Recovery and Growth Plan. Virtually all the budget codes start with ERGP which implies that they are drawn from the ERGP

“This is a good development considering that previous budgets of the administration lacked an anchor. However, merely using ERGP code does not necessarily show an anchor. Substantial compliance lies with interrogating the actual provisions to see if they are in tandem with the goals and objectives of the ERGP.

“A big picture is missing in the 2018 budget projections. The first issue is that capital expenditure is to take 28 per cent of the overall vote. While it looks good on paper, previous experience indicates that capital vote is very poorly implemented so it’s imperative for the administration to ensure that a bulk of capital expenditure is developmental rather than administrative.

“Nigeria is faced with massive

CSJ: 2018 BUDGET CONTAINS FRIVOLOUS, UNCLEAR, WASTEFUL EXPENDITURE ITEMS

unemployment and underemployment challenges. At the end of 2017, unemployment stood at 18.8 per cent and underemployment 21.2 per cent, so a budget that seeks to regenerate the economy should tie expenditure and its underlying policies to reducing unemployment and job creation but the budget was entirely silent on how its proposals would reduce the high unemployment figures.

“The budget also needs to be anchored on a robust and realistic economic, fiscal and developmental framework which emphasises domestic resource mobilisation and popular capitalism driven by the commitment of all members of the society, where every ready and willing Nigerian partakes in the baking of the cake and as such, claims right to be at the table on the sharing of the proceeds of national investments,” he argued.