ISSUES IN THE 2024 BUDGET CONTROVERSY
The lawmakers should take their assignment much more seriously
The controversy arising from the suspension of Senator Abdul Ningi for three months by his colleagues has refused to go away. The resolution of the Senate on Tuesday was sequel to the allegations raised by Ningi of a ‘N3 trillion budget padding’ in the N28.7trillion 2024 Appropriation Act. “For the first time in Nigerian history, today we are operating two different budgets. One budget approved by the National Assembly and signed by President Bola Tinubu and the one implemented by the Presidency,” Ningi had publicly alleged. “Apparently, we discovered ₦3 trillion was inserted into the budgets without locations. This is the highest budget padding that has happened in Nigerian history under Senator Akpabio’s watch.”
Ningi’s inability to substantiate his allegations earned him the suspension by his colleagues. But regardless of how the controversy pans out, financial ‘padding’ (a byword for corruption) is increasingly becoming part of the nation’s budgeting system. Yet, the essence of what is glibly described as the ‘legislative power of the purse’ is for the lawmakers to expand their democratic leverage on behalf of citizens to serve as watchdogs in the way and manner national resources are utilised. This function cannot be properly undertaken by a National Assembly that is neither transparent nor accountable. More unfortunate is that the executive cannot recognise the pivotal role of a budget as an instrument to reduce inequality, address poverty, tackle insecurity, bridge infrastructure gap and invest in human capital development. That President Bola Tinubu assented to the bill as passed by the National Assembly makes both the executive and legislature complicit.
At an interactive session with the Senate Committee on Finance on the 2022-2025 Medium Term Expenditure Framework in September 2022, the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) accused ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) of fiddling with the 2021 and 2022 budgets to the tune of N400 billion by duplicating projects. “From our own end, detection of such projects is done by verifying their locations and names, upon which we tell the appropriate authorities not to release wrongly budgeted monies,” said then ICPC chairman, Bolaji Owasanoye. Indeed, financial impropriety in several of the MDAs is not only mind boggling but has also led to loss of huge revenues running into trillions of naira. Many of them inflate contracts, fail to remit tax, divert pension and National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) deductions. Some agencies consistently breach the extant laws, guidelines, and regulations in remission of money to the treasury.
These allegations are not coming only from the ICPC. In 2017, the office of the Auditor-General of the Federation (AuGF) gave a damning report on the financial records of the MDAs. But the lawmakers should still be held accountable for these lapses. Since legislative oversight implies scrutinising and authorising revenues and expenditures, a compromised National Assembly cannot hold other arms to account. That accounts for most of the malpractices in the MDAs. We therefore hope that lessons will be learnt from this sordid experience so that in considering the appropriation bill in future, the National Assembly will be guided only by the national interest.
It may have been inadvertent, Senate President Godswill Akpabio was apt in saying last week that many Nigerians have lost respect for the National Assembly. But he was wrong to imagine that Ningi could repair such reputational damage with his speech. What is required is for the National Assembly to rise to their constitutional responsibility. The budget of a country is too important to be treated in the casual manner adopted by the federal lawmakers with frivolous items and monetary provisions that make little sense.
To the extent that fiscal irresponsibility begets more irresponsibility, when a body that is constitutionally empowered to have its eyes at every sector of our national life is deeply involved in unwholesome practices, there is a problem. We are therefore constrained to ask our lawmakers to begin to take their national assignment much more seriously. They must begin to diligently exercise their constitutionally guaranteed powers of oversight over the nation’s finance. That is the essence of the budgeting process.
