2017 budget’s devilish detail

Figures generally unsettle most of us, a major reason for financial illiteracy, but Nigerians need to look more critically at the nation’s budget for this year especially when you remember the English saying, the devil is in the detail. While presenting the budget dubbed ‘Budget of Recovery and Growth’ on Wednesday, December 14 last year, President Muhammadu Buhar promised that the problems of ‘padding’ as seen in the 2016 one has been taken care of and Nigerians believed him. One doubt if this is actually the caseI hope we can still recollect that a US$ is pegged at N305 in the budget with oil price estimated to be $42.5 per barrel with a projection of 2.2million barrels per day for oil.

My challenge to fellow citizens is to take a closer look at the budget estimates, which, by the way, is available, online and interrogate the figures more even as the national assembly debate it. It is even more pertinent to do this as a $1 billion Eurobond was secured last Friday ostensibly to finance the 2017 budget’s deficit. That on its own is an indicator of how some foreigners still rate our economy and the more reason why we have to be sure how the money will be deployed.

So I decided to examine the budget more closely and some of the figures can make a dead person to scream from the grave at those who prepared the document. Of course, our budget is not participatory and despite assurances to the contrary, those who prepared it still arbitrarily fix figures and it will be difficult to convince citizens they had no intention to defraud during the preparation process. There was no scientific method to the ministries and agencies I picked and it was not targeted at anybody heading those bodies. That caveat is necessary in these days of cloudy vision and personality wars in our governance.

Let’s start with the ministry of mines and steel development headed by Kayode Fayemi, former Ekiti State governor and an academic who recently, at his alma mater, University of Lagos, challenged the graduating students at the school’s graduation lecture. A tidy sum of N295 million is budgeted for “IT automation and web portal maintenance”, with code FMOSM30876497. Yes, N295 million. I guess there must be something with our former governors and websites. Lest you think this figure contains purchase of computers and other hardware, there is another estimate of N87.83 million for “Procurement of capital store items” code FMOSM77097398, whatever that means. Remembering that our dear minister is an academic, the ministry budgeted N40 million for “Subscription for international mining journals and publications” with the code FMOSM63694685.

In an age where most academic journals are available online and their abstracts are posted free helping readers to decide whether they want to buy or not, Nigeria will fork out a whopping N40 million. It is doubtful if Fayemi’s pedigree cannot grant him free access to any journal, which would be beneficial to the ministry he superintends, but money must just be budgeted and spent. Raising this with two academics over the weekend, one working with the United Nations and the other teaching in a university in the United States, they pooh-poohed the idea of subscription fee for journals these days. Just one more item, “Procurement of an operational vehicle for M&E fieldwork, insurance for the vehicle, vehicle branding, vehicle licencing, installation of security gadgets” will cost N216 million.

The ministry of justice at the forefront of this government’s war on corruption will spend N200 million on “Purchase of library books and equipment” while it’s asking for N153.9 million for “Uniforms and other clothing” maybe for judges and lawyers appearing before their lordships. We all know, however, that lawyers are responsible for their own uniforms. The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), under the supervision of the ministry has “Purchase of operational vehicles” twice for N44.36 million and N82.85 million. Abubakar Malami, a senior advocate is the justice minister and the ministry is asking for N178.54 million for “Construction of customized library” and another N200 million for “purchase of library books and equipment.”

Okechukwu Enelamah’s ministry of industry, trade and investment is asking for N93.21 million for “Miscellaneous expenses general”, N935 million for “governance and institutional reforms” and N144 million for development of policy framework. These examples are enough to illustrate the point that this year’s budget is not squeaky clean and citizens must shout loud enough that we are being shortchanged. Various groups are campaigning against the opacity in our budget process and we need to join in their agitation. Clearly the devil is in the detail of this year’s budget, get a copy and what you’ll discover will shock you.