Waziri Adio questions FG’s N146bn budget for Lagos metro line, N238bn for NIA hospital

Waziri Adio, respected public policy analyst, has questioned a number of provisions in the proposed 2025 budget of the federal government.

Writing in his weekly column in THISDAY on Sunday, Adio, who is the founder and executive director of Agora Policy think tank, described some budgetary provisions as “curious”.

“One glaring example is the plan to transfer N146.14 billion to MOFI (Ministry of Finance Incorporated) as counterpart funding for the Lagos Green Line Metro Rail Phase 1. This raises many questions. The proposed allocation for the metro-line within a state is 65% of the capital budget and 57% of the entire budget of the Ministry of Transport,” he wrote.

“If this is counterpart funding from a recapitalised MOFI, why is the money coming from the budget of a federal ministry? Why can’t MOFI raise its counterpart funding from the market? How was the decision arrived at that this is a project to invest federal money into and will such facility be available to other states outside of Lagos?”

He said many proposals “do not pass the muster of necessity and regeneration or even transparency”.

Adio wrote: “Why do we propose to spend N238.05 billion for a hospital for the Nigeria Intelligence Agency (NIA) while the capital budget for the entire Ministry of Health and Social Welfare is N653.61 billion? Why do we need to allocate N50 billion as capital supplementation for a building for FIRS, an agency that gets 4% as cost of collection and with a hefty budget likely to be about half a trillion Naira? And how do we have a N761.97 billion as a one-line item for Special Projects?”

The former executive secretary of Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparent Initiative (NEITI) raised fresh question on where the funds for the presidential yet and Lagos-Calabar coastal road came from.

“I have searched unsuccessfully for two items in the current budget documents, as I did in previous main and supplementary budgets: the funding of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway and the purchase of the presidential jet,” he wrote.

“Maybe they are tucked somewhere I am yet to get to or maybe they are couched in a way that is not apparent. Anyone who has seen them should kindly share.

“My interest is not about the utility or the urgency or even the cost of these items. I am interested in them for two reasons. One, citizens deserve to know how their common wealth is being expended and the processes followed to ensure there is proper value for money. These things should not be a matter of speculations or gossips.

“Two, no public money should be spent without appropriation and accountability in a democracy. We are not under an absolute monarchy where the king owns all and can whatever he likes. Beyond the concern about the sanctity of the budgeting process, there are higher values of transparency, answerability and democratic stewardship at play here.

“These higher values currently seem lost on those constitutionally bestowed with the power of the purse and oversight, but should never be lost on us as citizens. We are citizens, not subjects; and we have a duty to ask pointed questions of those holding power in trust and to always insist that they do better.”