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UPON resumption on Tuesday after a two-month recess, the Senate prioritised the 2025 appropriation bill. Budget proposals are due for submission by the various ministries, departments, and agencies by October for scrutiny, passage, and eventual assent by President Bola Tinubu.
The Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation, Tanimu Yakubu, at training for budget officers on the preparation of the 2025 budget, listed security as a priority item to foster capital accumulation, meet investor expectations and empower citizens through effective mobilisation and efficient deployment of development resources.
He admitted that the quality of Nigeria’s national budget has been a longstanding concern, with stakeholders often questioning the relevance, execution, and effectiveness of budgetary proposals.
Yakubu stated the obvious. Nigeria’s budgeting system has failed to bring about the desired results or substantial improvements in citizens’ quality of life. Despite the trillions of naira budgeted yearly, Nigeria suffers from a huge infrastructure deficit with 230 million citizens managing just 5,000 megawatts of electricity.
The railway system is largely a carryover of the colonial era. Public hospitals and schools are in a shambles. Potable water is non-existent even in Nigeria’s largest cities.
The budget is an important economic policy instrument available to the government to deliver social goods, facilitate economic prosperity, drive sustainable developments, and attract investments.
However, grave failings in Nigeria’s budget preparation, planning, execution, evaluation, monitoring, and entrenched systemic corruption have resulted in over 56,000 projects abandoned across the six regions.
Poverty levels are elevated as debt rises despite the millions of dollars pumped into Nigeria by development partners to strengthen its public financial management systems.
The Collaborative Africa Budget Reform Initiative said Nigeria’s budgets fail to deliver because of non-release of funds, poor procurement practices, corruption, weak capabilities to plan and execute projects, and lack of continuity in policies and project implementation by succeeding administrations.
Delays in the budget preparation process lead to late passage by the National Assembly and assent by the President.
Political pressures result in too many projects being executed at once without adequate funding, often leading to abandonment. Capital projects suffer especially due to the late release of funds.
There is poor oversight by legislators who are usually more concerned about securing funds for their constituency projects for which they account for no one.
There have been calls for the abandonment of the envelope budgeting system which sees funds voted for MDAs and officials now work backward to look for “projects” to execute and justify the expenditure. MDAs budget the same amount year after year for computers, office furniture, and vehicles as if these are consumables.
Billions have been lost to paper contracts and bogus consultancy jobs through budget padding. Budgeting must be on a needs basis to eliminate waste.
Lawmakers have a responsibility to eliminate ridiculous insertions. BudgIT reported that the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria in Ibadan got N250 million for solar streetlights in Lagos in the 2024 budget. It got N100 million for motorcycles in Osun, N100 million for health centre construction in Ondo, and N200 million for classroom renovations in Rivers. These insertions make a mockery of the budgeting process.
As Yakubu noted, Nigeria’s economy is under immense pressure from various directions – a volatile global market, suppressed oil revenues, rising debt servicing costs, and threatened primary production processes due to insecurity in food-producing states. Citizens and businesses are buffeted by inflation and high energy prices. The unemployment rate is rising.
In the past, successive military governments ensured that the budget was signed by 31 December of each year. For the budget to achieve its goals, preparation needs to start early and submissions timely. Virtually all federal budgets since 1999 have experienced delays amid accusations of fraud and inconsistencies.
The Tinubu administration must make a difference to ensure the budget works for citizens.
