Politics
By Anthony Isibor
THERE have been several controversies concerning the insertion of unscrupulous amounts of monies by the National Assembly into the budgets of ministries, and agencies of government, sometimes without their knowledge.
These monies, which run into billions are in complete disregard for the already tight economic situation of the country and usually amount to the diversion of scarce resources to selfish purposes at the detriment of the country and its citizens.
Although sections 58, 59 and 81 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria grant powers to the National and State House of Assemblies’ to review annual budgets laid before them, as well as powers to appropriate funds, section 48 of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2007 mandates that the National Assembly must ensure transparency during the preparation and discussion of the annual budget.
A report released by BudgIT, a civic organization driven to make the Nigerian budget and public data more comprehensible and accessible across every literacy span has revealed how the National Assembly’s abuse of its appropriation powers, is fueling inefficiency and wastage.
The NASS’ misuse of its ‘Powers of the Purse’ can be seen in the practice of perennially flooding the budget with vague, frivolous, and constituency-like projects during the process of the annual budget review.
The budget is supposed to be an expression of the needs and preferences of citizens says BudgIT in its analysis of the 2021 and 2022 proposed and approved budgets of the Federal Government of Nigeria to ascertain the quality of the National Assembly review and the nature of budget line insertions and the alignment of these insertions with the National Development Plan and the Medium-Term Budget Framework.
BudgIT noted that although the Executive had earmarked N100bn for constituency projects, nominated by the 365 Federal House of Representatives members and 109 Senators, it identified, as part of the insertions, 1,581 “Federal Constituency” projects in the 2021 Appropriation Act and 1,834 “Federal Constituency” projects in the 2022 Appropriation Act valued at N105bn and N137.07bn respectively.
It also discovered in its findings that although the 2021 proposed budget contained 13,416 capital projects, the approved budget contained 19,017 capital projects, showing that 5,601 capital projects were added to the Appropriation Bill during the review by the National Assembly.
It observed that the monetary value of the 5,601 inserted projects summed up to N913.15bn, which is 21.8% of the total capital expenditure for 2021, spread across 32 Mother Ministries and 327 Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the Federal Government.
Similarly, in 2022, and alluded to by the President during the signing of the 2022 Appropriation Act, BudgIT observed that 6,462 projects were inserted by the National Assembly across 37 Mother Ministries and 340 MDAs. Cumulatively, the monetary value of the National Assembly insertions in the 2022 Appropriations Act was N910.37bn (which is 22.07% of the total capital expenditure for 2022).
According to the BudgIT report, a critical look at the nature of insertions in 2021 and 2022, revealed that the majority of the insertions are projects that ideally should be the responsibilities of State and Local Governments.
“In the same vein, the 2021 Act had 1,055 insertions valued at N103.15bn, which were projects in senatorial districts, while the 2022 Act had 1,235 insertions valued at N139.26bn, which were projects in senatorial districts. The aforementioned is a clear indication that the National Assembly leveraged the appropriation powers granted it by the constitution to exceed the N100bn ZIPs envelope to insert ‘constituency-like’ projects into the 2021 and 2022 Appropriation Acts.
“It is worthy of note that 614 street light projects with a cumulative value of N75.83bn, which were insertions observed in 2021, increased to 902 street light projects in 2022 valued at N114.95bn. Likewise, the construction of civic/town halls and installation of boreholes, which ordinarily should be the duty of local governments, were inserted into the 2021 and 2022 budgets. While the installation of 364 boreholes and construction of 47 civic/town halls were insertions observed in 2021, the installation of 365 boreholes and construction of 73 civic/town halls were insertions observed in 2022.
“An evaluation of the monetary classification of the insertions by the National Assembly reveals that the bulk of the insertions were projects valued between N10m and N500m. While the 2021 and 2022 budgets, respectively, had 135 and 105 insertions valued at less than N10m, the aforementioned budgets had 1 and 9 insertions, respectively, costing above N5bn. To further disaggregate this classification, 2,048 insertions in 2021 and 1,957 insertions in 2022 were projects valued between N10m and N49.99m. Likewise, 1985 insertions in 2021 and 2592 insertions in 2022 were projects valued between N100m and N499.99m.
“Corroborated by the President, the National Assembly domiciled most of the insertions in the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (including quite a number of MDAs under it) as 1,125 and 1,522 projects were identified as insertions into the budgets of the ministry and its agencies in 2021 and 2022 respectively. For proper context, the cumulative monetary value of insertions into the budget of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) in 2021 was N122.6bn—which is 58.08% of the total capital expenditure envelope of the ministry and the other 45 departments, agencies and parastatals under it.
“By the same token, 1,522 projects with a cumulative cost of N186.61bn (86.44% of the total capital expenditure envelope of FMARD) were inserted into the 2022 budget of FMARD. As depicted in table 1, key allocations to projects and programs of FMARD in 2022, which are essential to achieving the ministerial mandate and strategic goal of the National Development Plan (aimed at reducing food security and reducing poverty), were drastically reduced to create fiscal space for the National Assembly’s insertions. Specifically, the budget line that addresses agric extension service support was cut by N1.06bn, 40.15% of the proposed allocation.’’
A.I
Tags: BUDGIT
