The trouble with the current leadership of President Umaru Musa Yar’dua and his cabinet members is that of a fundamental deceit of themselves and a dedicated effort to hoodwink the Nigerian people particularly on issues of economic management of his administration and the performance of the 2009 budget.
At the last meeting of the Federal Executive Council in the month of August; which was devoted to the sectoral review of the 2009 budget performance, it was an ugly sight and bad news to see and hear Nigeria’s cabinet ministers regale in the percentage of the implementation of the budget in their various ministries, departments and agencies. All the six ministers that had the opportunity of addressing the media on the performance of their ministries as regards the 2009 Appropriation Act, had the audacity of putting up a bold and shameless face and scoring their ministries very high and unfounded marks.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content1'); });
According Rilwanu Lukman, the Minister of Petroleum Resources, his Ministry in terms of projects execution has attained 20% completion and will attain 100% by the end of the year 2009. The Minister of Health, Babatunde Osontimenyi claimed that his ministry had attained 60% implementation of the 2009 budget; with the installation of equipment nationwide to the tune of N1.1 billion as part of response to HIV/AIDS; and the execution of projects in excess of N5billion as part of the ministry’s midwifery services scheme targeting the recruitment of 3000 midwives to be deployed in local government areas and wards.
The aim of the programme according to the minister is to reduce maternal mortality ratio by at least 60% and child mortality by 55 percent in 2009/2010.The minister of interior was comfortable to inform Nigerians that by December he would have achieved 100% of budget implementation in his sector. With a capital budget of N11,503,604,727, out of which N10,779,650,721 has been committed. and a release of over 8billion and actual spending of N3,188,148,908.55, one wonders how the minister will attain this magic 100% percent implementation of the budget when we are already in the last quarter of the year in question. The minister of education, Sam Egwu claimed to have achieved 65.5 percent budget implementation in the education sector.
Although ASUU’s demands are not yet appropriated for, one wonders what the minister has done with ASUU on strike for months now and poor budget implementation that had been a source of conflict between executive and legislature to have made such an amorphous claim on this year’s budget. The only tangible project the minister announced in his presentation was the establishment of two federal polytechnics in Bayelsa and Taraba States. The fact remains that the 2009 Appropriation Act is being haphazardly implemented.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content2'); });
The show, that last Wednesday in August after the Federal Executive Council meeting was a show of shame, though a face-saving one by the President Umaru Musa-Yar’dua’s government. What the Nigerian people and development and economic experts have seen is weak capital budget implementation capacity and insincerity in the management of the nation’s fiscal affairs; contrary to the essence and provisions of the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007 The report of the Budget Office of the Federation on the implementation of the 2009 budget states that in the first quarter, the sum of N200.37 billion was released to MDAs for capital expenditure. Out of this sum N160.84 billion was cash backed by the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation.
However, only N33.26 billion was accessed and utilised by MDAs which represents 20.68% performance by MDAs in the utilization of capital votes. This report according to the Budget Office of the Federation was strictly based on response received from MDAs while physical verification and inspection of projects will wait until the end of the year when the budget is fully implemented. The implication of this is that the implementation figures could be much lower because MDAs would likely give figures to indicate that they are doing something with the moneys allocated to them. The second quarter budget implementation report is long overdue and the Budget Office is yet to prepare and release same. Thus all the claims by the minister are not based on any empirical evidence or evidence that can be substantiated. Government’s performance in budget implementation is poor.
The fact remains that the ministers and their civil servant partners in ministries, departments and agencies (MDA’s) are waiting to feast on the peoples resources when they will share the loot late in the year and return the rest to government coffers at the end of the year; under the guise of prudence, while the masses keep wallowing in abject poverty and basic infrastructure degenerates. This is not the meaning of good economic management. Returning money to government coffers at the end of the year; when several contractors to the government have not been paid and people oriented projects and programmes are not executed is a testament to a failed public expenditure management system
Ugo Jim-Nwoko is a Development Communications Practitioner and writes from Plot 17 Yaounde Street Wuse zone 6 Abuja.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('comments'); });