BudgIT: Nigeria has a spending problem — we must manage resources better

Gabriel Okeowo, chief executive officer of BudgIT, a civic tech non-profit organisation, says Nigeria has a spending problem.

His comment comes on the heels of findings by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) that 257 projects amounting to N20.138 billion were duplicated in the 2021 budget.

Reacting to this on Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television programme, on Thursday, Okeowo said it is time for critical stakeholders to come to terms with the “expenditure inefficiency problem”.

He also tasked the ministry of finance to allow for transparency in tracking government spending in every fiscal year, adding that managing the country’s revenue is the first step towards decimating corruption.

“It is high time that we began to realise that we do not only have a revenue problem, we also have expenditure inefficiency problem,” he said.

“The same way the nation came to term that we have a revenue problem. We have been shouting that before now but it was just about a year ago that the critical stakeholders of the government are now agreeing that we have a revenue problem.

“We need to first establish that we have an expenditure inefficiency problem, and then when we establish that, we should also establish that our way out is not to spend more.

“What happens to managing the resources we have effectively? That is where we need to start from. And what we need to do is that the budget office, the ministry of finance still have a lot of work to do.

“If there is a department within the ministry that is looking into the efficiency of government spending. They need to put that information out.”