2017 Federal Budget: Another Movie?

Babatunde Fashola

Anyone would think that after the intrigues and controversies that attended the 2016 Appropriation Act, a better job would be done with regards to 2017 budget. But no, not in Nigeria.  We seem to have an unusual appetite for the sordid, the obscene and the bizzare. And we shamelessly revel in it too. Budget-padding, it would appear, is again rearing its ugly head in the 2017 budget.

On Tuesday February 14, Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, appeared before the Barnabas Gemade-led Senate Committee on Housing and Urban Development to defend his Ministry’s 2017 budget proposal. It was supposed to be a normal ritual. Until Fashola dropped a bombshell.

Fashola denied knowledge of an item numbered FMOW99934089 for N2billion allocated to “Regional Housing Scheme” in his Ministry’s budget. He said the scheme was not his Ministry’s project, and wondered why anyone would take the liberty to insert it there.  

 According to Fashola, the N2 billion allocation was discovered in the proposal after it was worked upon by the Ministry of Finance. He therefore referred the lawmakers to the Ministry of Finance for more information as he himself was lost. Below is the exchange between Fashola and the law makers as reported by Punch newspaper:

Nigerians need a budget that will impact their lives positively; a budget that will truly drive development., not one with over-bloated figures but scarce on deliverables.

Gemade: What is this provision of N2 billion for regional housing scheme? What is regional housing scheme? Where is it taking place? What is happening? Have you seen it on Page 18?

Fashola: It is not our project. It came in from, I think, the Budget (Office). It is a Ministry of Finance initiative; saying that they want to do what they called ‘family homes’. It is not from us.

Gemade: Yes, but they have put it here; otherwise, we will not be in the position to accept it.

Fashola: I know as much of it as you do sir.

Gemade: But you are here to defend this budget in totality.

Fashola: That is why I have come. I am explaining to you now, sir, on how it comes into our budget. That is not what we submitted. We didn’t submit that proposal.

Gemade: So, will the ministry be kind enough to tell the people who put this in this budget to come forward and let us know?

Fashola: Please.

Gemade: Let us know what is regional housing program because government cannot be operated in secrecy.

Fashola: I think the committee, if you permit me to bring this suggestion…

Gemade: …should invite them?

Fashola: Yes, sir.

Gemade: But you know the people; we don’t know them.

Fashola: No, sir. We just said finance sir.

Gemade: Finance ministry?

Fashola: Yes sir.

Gemade: We will write to the minister.

Fashola: Please do sir.

I dare say that Fashola should be commended for refusing to be conscripted into the cult budget-padders.

Though the Senate committee has resolved to invite the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, to explain the insertion of the allocation, it is doubtful if much would come of it. The padders of the 2016 budget both in the National Assembly and the Executive are still walking free except for Hon Jubrin Abdulmumin, the erstwhile chairman of House of Reps Committee on Appropriation who was suspended for 180 legislative days for spilling the bean.  

That budget-padding is again happening in a regime that prides itself on integrity and anti-corruption is not only unacceptable but also an affront to President Buhari himself

It is sad that budgeting process in Nigeria has remained in the realm of occultism – in a manner of speaking, that is. Little wonder it has repeatedly failed to drive development.

How is it that we have become a people without shame? Every day we are regaled with tales of official corruption. There is corruption in every facet of our national life. There is corruption even in corruption itself. Which is probably why a federal lawmaker recently recommended, even though comically, that corruption be legalized in Nigeria. Such is the dimension official corruption has assumed in our country that it is now abnormal to frown at it. We even openly celebrate it.

But that is precisely why Nigerians voted, as President, Muhammadu Buhari, a straight ramrod retired Army General with very low tolerance for corruption. Since Buhari mounted the saddle, he has prosecuted his anti-corruption crusade with relentless vigour. He has touch-lit everywhere except perhaps members of his own cabinet. I think it is now time to do just that. The President must now take decisive action against members of his own cabinet who in one way or the other are linked to corrupt practices. Padders of the 2017 budget must be fished out and dealt with decisively.

If budget padding in 2016 was excused as the handiwork of entrenched interests carried over from the last administration, there is no reason it should be excused in 2017. One expected the President to have cleaned the Augean Stable by now. Heads in Buhari’s cabinet must now roll. There is no other way to curb the menace of budget padding than to punish the culprits. It is probably because no significant head rolled in the 2016 budget-padding controversy, that is why it is happening again in 2017.

That it is again happening in a regime that prides itself on integrity and anti-corruption is not only unacceptable but also an affront to President Buhari himself, and he should genuinely be angry about it. It is time to be ruthless with the culture of budget-padding. Enough is enough. Nigerians need a budget that will impact their lives positively; a budget that will truly drive development., not one with over-bloated figures but scarce on deliverables.