Lawmakers from both the Senate and House of Representatives have said the 2018 Budget proposal is totally imaginary and designed to consolidate on the achievements of the 2016 and 2017 budgets, but less than 15% of the 2017 budget has been achieved.
The Lawmakers accused the Federal Government of making expenditures on agencies that are not adding value to the Country.
When Senator representing Abia South, Enyinnaya Abaribe, described the 2018 Budget proposal as fictitious, the Majority Leader, Senator Ahmad Lawan, faulted Abaribe’s description of the 2018 Budget proposal saying the Senator should use another word that was parliamentary and acceptable.
Abaribe apologized, withdrawing the word ‘fictitious’ replacing it with ‘totally imaginary’.
Abaribe indicated that there was no basis for the budget, adding that the assumptions were totally wrong and off the mark.
“In what sense will this 2018 budget be predicated on assumptions that have already been destroyed? You are assuming N11tn, yet you are getting less than N1tn. How does that happen? That is why I said, with all due respect to my colleagues, that it is imaginary. The 2018 budget is already dead on arrival”.
Senator representing Gombe South, Senator Joshua Lidani said the 2017 Budget was abysmal, describing the proposed 2018 budget as a wishful thinking.
According to Senator Lidani, by the end of the year, only 50% of the capital fund would have been released, expressing uncertainty on the percentage that would finally be released.
“So, we will end up having a budget that has performed below expectation. And it is on this budget that we are now predicating the 2018 budget. Unless we get the 2017 budget right and analyse what went wrong, we will be building the 2018 budget on a very weak foundation”.
Senator Lidani also said, in 2017 Nigeria’s non-oil revenue fell by 74%, emphasizing that the non-oil revenue was supposed to contribute N4.165tn, which is almost 50% of the N8.6tn budget. He further stated that if the sum is not realized, the budget will be good as dead.
“This is very disturbing and alarming indeed, especially when you consider the fact that the 2018 budget is predicated heavily on non-oil revenue”.
Another Senator, representing Taraba, Yusuf Abubakar Yusuf said foreign reserves are rising as a result of increase in oil prices.
Senator Yusuf added that the budget will only be implemented if the federal administration is efficient, but noted that the Government is inefficient and as a result, the revenue institutions are not performing as expected.
Chairman, House Committee on Agricultural Production Services, Mohammed Monguno, said lawmakers have always performed their duties as the Legislature over the years, but expressed displeasure on lack of implementation.
“The problem is the implementation. When we pass the proposals, they are left without implementation; the next year, another one is brought again”.
Monguno recalled that though the crude oil benchmark price for the 2017 budget had been exceeded by 18%, the Government could not release capital funds.
“There must be a problem somewhere, which must be solved. We have to intensify our oversight duties and continue to demand that budgets are implemented by the relevant agencies of government”.
Contributing, Senator Ben Murray-Bruce stated that some agencies get recurrent expenditure, they pay salaries, they get houses, computers, cars etc., with no money to do any work. So, we have 2.4 million people consuming 60% of the recurrent expenditure of Nigeria, which according to the Senator doesn’t make any sense.
Senator Murray-Bruce also said the National Orientation Agency (NOA) was necessary when Nigeria had no political party, decrying the billions of Naira spent on the agency while questioning the value of the NOA in today’s World.
“Let us look at agencies that make no sense: the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria has 8,000 workers, sell it to the staff. Sell the Nigerian Television Authority to the staff, Voice of Nigeria, who listens to the VON? Sell it. If the staffs want to buy, let them buy it.
If we spend 71% on recurrent expenditure, we will never get out of this predicament in which we find ourselves”.
According to Murray-Bruce, the United Nations had projected that by February 2018, Nigeria would have more people in poverty than India.
“We have a population of 180 million people, India has 1.3 billion. Then, if we are going to have more people in poverty than India, then we have to create jobs. Once we create jobs we can then export our Naira to China, to India or some other places”.
Also, the Deputy Whip, Senator Francis Alimikhena stated that there is no need to raise the hope of Nigerians, saying the Nigerian Government is estimating N8.6tn, whereas the execution is zero.
“If we say the budget is N3tn and execution is N3tn, it is better than N10tn and the execution is revenue shortfall”.
In his remarks, the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu noted that Senator Ben Murray-Bruce has pointed out some Agencies that are not functional, adding that those government agencies should not be in existence anymore.
According to him, “I hope the Government will listen to such exposures and be able to do away with such agencies. If the Government fails to remove those agencies from our budget, we have a responsibility to Nigerians to bring bills in order to repeal the laws setting up those agencies and stop wastage of our resources”.
