The Nation Newspaper

Tag: budgets

  • Inflated budgets

    Inflated budgets

    But for the Federal Ministry of Finance which had on June 13 directed the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (OAGF) to close the accounts of ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) that had failed to remit a total of N58billion independent revenue to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF), the sum of N34billion recovered from some of the agencies would still have been outside of the government purse. This, in effect, is to say that N24billion is yet to be recovered!

    Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said that her ministry would continue to work on the matter “until government gets what it wants”. By this we understand the minister to mean that the government would not relent in its effort to recover the rest of unremitted funds by defaulting agencies. We were then told that the recovered money “had been factored into the cash-backing for the second quarter”.

    Apart from the recovery of unremitted funds, the minister said that 215 MDAs and a total of 153,019 staff members were already captured on the Integrated Payroll and Personal Information System (IPPIS) platform since January, from which savings of N118.9million had been recorded as a result of the operation of the system.

    We regard the information by the Minister of Finance as sweet talk meant to sooth the nerves of agitated critics of the yearly unremitted funds into the Consolidated Revenue Fund. This idea of recovering unspent and unremitted funds from the public treasury has been going on for years. However, all we hear now and then is about money being recovered. We are hardly told about who the culprits are except in the case of a former Minister of Education, Professor Fabian Osuji, who was sacked because of unremitted fund of just N50million at that time. Now, cases of unremitted funds have escalated to N58billion.

    But the recovery of such a huge amount of money from the MDAs put a big question mark on the basis of budget preparations by relevant agencies of government, and the approvals by the Federal Ministry of Finance.

    How come such an amount was not utilised by the concerned agencies in the first place? Was it the case of inflated budget so that the leftover would be shared by some government officials after the end of each financial year?

    We also believe that the amount so recovered should have been ploughed back as part of the following year’s budget. Also, the MDAs with excess from their previous budgets should have got an equivalent amount of excess money deducted from their next budget as they really did not need it except probably for the personal use of public officials who might want to steal it. This is probably why MDAs always lobby for inflated budgets when defending their budgets.

    We have always heard of inflated contracts as a way of stealing public funds. In these days, we do have budget inflation which has now been captured by the mandated recovery of overstuffed budgets. The pity of it is that when the excess money is recovered, Nigerians cannot feel the impact on governance. Have they felt the impact of the billions recovered from culprits like the late General Sani Abacha and many political thieves whose stolen wealth had been returned to the Federal Government by the governments of Switzerland, United Kingdom, Germany, United States, among others?

    For once, the Federal Government should get serious by not only recovering the excess of inflated budgets and recovered loots from thieving politicians and top government functionaries, but fish out the culprits for appropriate punishments. Until this is done, all talks about recovery of money from this or that quarter remain sheer hypocrisy.

     

  • Sanusi’s CBN ‘Medical Tourism’: Bigger medical budgets, Medical entrepreneurship

    Sanusi’s CBN ‘Medical Tourism’: Bigger medical budgets, Medical entrepreneurship

    Medical tourism’ complained about by CBN’ Governor Sanusi saves the lives of those who can afford it or have sufficient government-CBN connections for them to pay. For over 40 years, we doctors were strangled and made medically impotent by government-orchestrated limited budgets and obsolete equipment. For how long will Nigeria be satisfied with the cheapest medical equipment? We in medicine manage to cater for the ‘rest of us’ -100+million or are forced to go on strike to guarantee ‘minimum facilities’ and remuneration compared to the bullion raked in by politicians. Nigeria operates a ‘Minimum Medical Service’ when we can afford ‘optimum’ or ‘gold standard; services for our people. Medical tourism is about citizens’ rights to maximum medical services which we in Nigeria can easily afford by increasing medical budgets, eliminating corruption in the medical delivery system and providing 24/7 electricity.

    As I write, the Indians are coming with medical equipment bought with loans from Indian billionaires and banks at 3-4% to ‘take over’ medical services and ‘improve’ hospitals providing ‘superior service’. If Nigerians had cheap and easy medical loans, would we not have the best equipment also?  Many doctors, including me, seek N2-4.8m soft loans for the best ultrasound and other machines payable over 3-5years at 3-5% interest per annum –like for a car in the 1970s. Why should hard working professionals in Nigeria, who deliver services, be denied government perks and tax breaks that rice, cement, sugar, tobacco and oil marketers got in every military and political era that made Nigerians paupers and them billionaires? I too would like to be billionaire but I would prefer to serve my patients with better equipment! God knows we have worked hard. But life is worthless in Nigeria. Ask any teacher or patient.

    But even sartorially elegant and ‘wise’ Sanusi, his CBN and banks have got it wrong. It is simply a ‘lack of funds’ issue. The problem is not with the medical tourists’ right to obtain the best for themselves. In fact the medical tourists are as wise as Sanusi as they have the good sense to avoid contracting more diseases and even dying in dirty-walled and filthy ‘mattressed’ casualties in concentration camps called hospitals. Even if we refuse to get good equipment why is it impossible for Nigeria’s budgets to paint hospitals and clinics quarterly, annually, before they get filthy? Visit any government casualty room. You will be sick! The problem is with the money supply side. Nigeria constantly fails to provide funds for cleanliness and cutting edge medicine. The national and state budgets and the CBN fail to recognise government hospitals, let alone private medical practice among others, as genuine profession-driven entrepreneurship strategies. Yet private practice employs tens of thousands of Nigerians in hospitals and clinics. Is that not ‘Medical Entrepreneurship’?

    Many specialists still inside government facilities have personally acquired specialist skills which waste away without saving any Nigerians because the skills need cutting-edge equipment maliciously cut by politicians from the hospital budget. Though these hospitals are often named ‘specialist’ there is nothing specialist delivered to the patient-just mediocre medicine. Do you know what a radiologist, radiotherapist, neurosurgeon, laparoscopic surgeon, plastic surgeon, orthopaedic surgeon or a maxillofacial trauma surgeon or an obstetrician and gynaecologist need to deliver maximum service to Nigerians?

    Recent open heart surgery, kidney transplants, being bandied around as breakthroughs, are not new. They were performed 35 years ago in Nigeria by Nigerian doctors but the programmes died in an ‘agony of broken medical dreams’ from political budgetary neglect by idiotic governments when the title ‘Centres of Excellence’ was created to make a laughing stock of ‘Centres of Extreme Suffering’. From that time Nigerian medicine was dragged into disrepute and thousands of medical professionals wisely fled with their qualifications abroad to cater better for family and brain. Locally professionals were rendered redundant by the politics. Even in private practice the cost of cutting-edge medical equipment to replace obsolete machines is a huge obstacle to entrepreneurial development.

    Nigerian medicine requires petrodollars to be like medicine abroad. It demands cutting-edge equipment – the main ‘medical tourist attraction’. In Nigeria, cutting-edge equipment paradoxically costs more than in the UK. Decent medical loans are not available but N5million loans and N500,000 obituary pages are plentiful to bury the dead.

    Sanusi’s CBN should earmark N1billion for professionals in government and private practice for cheap, easy loans for ‘Professional Entrepreneurial Development’ in self-recognition, guaranteed by the NMA or their professional body.

    Even the ‘wise’ NMA has failed to negotiate such loans for its 30,000+ membership, though it has an annual budget of N2-300million of its members’ money. Can the NMA suspend most of its huge budget for administration, travel and five-star hotel accommodation and put N100m per annum for 20 years towards a powerful N1-2billion NMA Bank or NMA Coop Bank to guarantee its membership equipment and loans and get international grants? The NMA should also insist that state NMA should not beg governors for vehicles but save N1m/annum/state in a ‘Vehicle Fund’ to guarantee a new NMA vehicle every four years. Myopia!  If government refuses to improve medicine, the NMA should take up the challenge and lead in Medical Entrepreneurship promotion if CBN will refuse to recognise ‘Medical Entrepreneurship’ and prefers to merely criticise those who want the best medical care worldwide.

    To be continued.

     

    PS Please pray for those using delayed, damaged and ‘dead’ on the misnamed Lagos Ibadan Expressway.

     

  • Bankers’ bonus; In 2013, will political parties stop stealing from budgets?

    Bankers’ bonus; In 2013, will political parties stop stealing from budgets?

    No doubt we will again have the Bonus Saga with billions paid to managers and ‘wiz kids’ just because they handle cash and not like for professions which deliver blood, passengers, babies or children in schools. Can someone, may be CBN, tell us exactly what the bonus levels are in Nigeria – the richest poorest country in Africa. The subjugation of the world to monetisation is ugly and wrong, monetarily and morally. At the very least let all workers get a bonus equivalent to their worth calculated by an actuary. Landing a plane with 800 passengers, docking a ship with 5,000 passengers, running a university with 100,000 students, driving 33,000 litres of fuel from Lagos to Langtang or guiding 30 children through a year in school should all be more worthy of a ‘pilots’, captains’, vice-chancellors’, drivers’ or teachers’ bonus’ than the banker sitting in an office playing Russian roulette with other people’s money, stocks and shares and manipulating COT, bank charges, lending rates etc. A banker’s satisfactory outcome and cost cutting and increased share price is often won at the cost of job losses, death and destruction in the countryside. Nigerians also say no to Nigerians bankers’ bonuses, secret or revealed.

    We Nigerians have been bogged down with failed expectation and begging politicians to give us our rights to water, quick transportation, internationally accepted optimal education, adequate security and adequate recreational facilities. But ‘change has to come’! To correct the past, government must accept its errors, take budgeting line items more seriously, eliminate fraud in the contractor chain and get out of the ‘financial food chain’. The top priority question for all Nigerians is ‘Can political parties stop stealing and if not, will Nigeria survive 2014?

    It is March. Beware the Ides of March, Shakespeare writes! What are the omens? Are they good or bad? The budget is now signed. How much will be spent as budgeted and how much will be misused and stolen? It is a time of upheaval and restructuring and new decision-making in the major political parties. Many parties have been de-registered by INEC and many more may follow, releasing a tsunami of non-conformist, often idealistic and individualistic members, to choose a future in other surviving or merging parties or quit politics in disgust.

    Change is personal and political. Change is political party survival and revival of Nigeria. No change will mean death. We must all stop stealing from the budget and its derivatives during 2013 in preparation for 2014, the 100thyear of the infamous amalgamation. With new budgets in every LGA, state, the FCT, Abuja, and every MDA what political party resolutions have been made to change the culture of corruption? Or are the resolutions merely to continue the age-long ‘shortening the ration’ of the masses by theft alias corruption? Which media hungry TV political personality is making these stealing and theft resolutions in the political hierarchy, at party BOT meetings, in NASS, governor’s and minister’s and commissioner’s and top civil servants offices like Permanent Secretary Director etc? Before you steal, you must decide to steal!

    Just as you plan 2013 and your children’s school fees in your office, know and remember that these other places are real places where the real crime, stealing and theft, official and unofficial, legalised illegality, corruption against the people of the Nigerian nation, is hatched. There the crime is approved and rubber-stamped at 10,000 different levels each January including the tax office. Is no one clean in Nigeria’s political and civil servant hierarchy? Can we have such meetings where they will swear ‘We will not steal any of the budget?’ Or ‘We will steal only 10 or 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 or 70 or 80% of the budget.’ Who is the chief thief who speaks at the party meetings and directs the theft at every level of corrupt government? For Nigeria to change, the first thing is for every political party to change from thieving, bribing, grabbing mode to service mode. If it happens it will immediately retain trillions in the budgets.

    From exorbitant parking fine fees-N25,000 in Ibadan while it is N4,000 in Abeokuta; to ridiculous environmental and land use bills, outrageous personal assessments, huge energy costs, to budgetary theft, the Nigerian suffers at every turn.

    Nigeria will never achieve the higher ground of better living standards unless we, the citizens, manage to reverse positions with the politicians and wrestle the budget from them. How do we control the political profession’s appetite for the public funds and manipulation of laws for party members’ maximum gain? It is certain Nigeria’s politicians need education and massive reorientation towards service and humility. Arrogance is a disease among politicians and they certainly need deliverance from the vices of greed, theft, stealing, arrogance, corruption of thoughts and actions and policies.

    Political parties must curb their appetites for the public purse and find new ways to raise money. They already have high fees for political office seekers and underhand bribes within the party including new words for theft like ‘palliatives’ and ‘soft landing’ funds. Let them study and use the mechanisms of relatively honest political parties abroad –membership, announced donations etc. and stay away from percentages of budgets, contracts and extortion. Nigeria cannot survive another year of this method of bleeding the state in addition to the murderous multibillion SAPing of political ‘Salaries and Perks’ and constituency projects.

  • Traders hail planned dedication of future budgets to real sector

    Traders have hailed President Goodluck Jonathan’s decision to dedicate future budgets to the real sector.

    The National Association of Nigeria Traders (NANT) said the plan would boost employment, wealth and make the economy stronger.

    While inaugurating the National Competitive Council of Nigeria (NCCN) board at the Presidential Villa, Jonathan said from next year the budget would be dedicated to the manufacturing sector.

    In a statement, NANT’s President, Mr Ken Ukoha, said.

    “NANT believes that Nigeria has all it takes to become a world power and investors destination. We further believe that industrialisation is key and it does not require rocket science to turn Nigeria into the next industrial destination point in Africa.

    “For us, the success or failure of an economy starts from the fiscal framework and the 2014 budget and beyond can be used as that master key to unlock the nation’s fortunes; therefore, Mr President’s vision is in the right direction and must be supported.

    “It is on record that the world (including global bodies such as the World Bank, the IMF, and other respected organisations) is seeing Nigeria as an emerging and potentially strong economy,”he said.

    He said for emerging economies, the share of manufacturing in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is between 20 and 40 per cent, adding that in Nigeria, the sector’s share is less than five per cent, indicating under-utilisation and under performance.

    “It is noteworthy that the manufacturing sector has over the years remained comatose and, therefore, lost its position in the overall economic status.

    “ In accurate terms, the contribution of the sector has been dwindling, and of late staggered with fluctuations between four and six per cent contribution to the nation’s GDP. The average manufacturing capacity utilisation decreased from 47 per cent in 2009 to 45 per cent in 2010 and it is still taking a downward trend.

    “In terms of employment generation, available information reveals that a total of over 800 manufacturing companies closed shop between 2009 and 2011 as a result of their inability to continue to cope with the challenges posed by the harsh operating environment in Nigeria; and what this means is that there is a significant decline in employment ratio as a percentage of the total labour force in the formal sector of the nation’s economy,” he said.

    Ukoha said agriculture and trade have been holding the economy at 41 per cent and 28 per cent contribution to the GDP, adding that such contribution is only an unfortunate economic indication of absolute lopsidedness and failure of industrial transformation of the primary commodities to finished products that would in turn reduce the huge volume of imports which has kept the country’s economy on its knees.

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Fayemi, Amosun sign 2013 budgets

    Governors Kayode Fayemi (Ekiti) and Ibikunle Amosun (Ogun) yesterday signed the 2013 Appropriation Bills for their states into law.

    Fayemi also signed nine other bills into law.

    The others include the law to pay pension to former governors and their deputies and other auxiliary matters; Ekiti State Peace Corps Law, 2012; Prohibition of Smoking in Public Places Law, 2012; Ekiti State Lotteries Law, 2012 and House of Assembly Commission Loans Board Law, 2012.

    Others are the Ekiti State Board of Internal Revenue Law, 2013, Ekiti State Advisory on Prerogative of Mercy Law; Local Government Service Commission (amendment) Law and Local Government Administration (amendment) Law.

    Fayemi said this year’s budget would consolidate on on-going projects across the state.

    He said the proposed Ministry of Rural Development and Empowerment will ensure development at the grassroots.

    Noting that this was the first time the state’s budget would be passed before the New Year, the governor said the 2013 Appropriation Law was tailored in line with the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), which covers all sectors of the economy.

    He said the budget would be “carefully and faithfully implemented”.

    On the other laws, Fayemi said the establishment of a Peace Corps, which would work with security agencies, would sustain the peace in the state.

    He said the Board of Internal Revenue Law was to reduce the state’s dependence on federal allocation and improve the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).

    House of Assembly Speaker Adewale Omirin said the Fayemi administration delivered the dividends of democracy to the people in the implementation of the 2012 budget.

    He said the early passage of this year’s budget was to enable the administration continue with the good work.

    On December 6, Fayemi presented a proposed N93.6 billion budget to the Assembly, but it was jerked up to N97.6 billion. The House passed the budget on Friday.

    Assenting the bill in his office in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, Amosun thanked the House of Assembly for “diligently appraising the budget estimates”.

    He said after exhaustive deliberations, you were able to pass the budget and present it for assent before the end of the year. This demonstrates that the legislature and executive are working together to make life better for the people.”

    Amosun said the budget would be implemented to the letter.

    Speaker Suraj Adekumbi assured the governor of the Assembly’s support in rebuilding the state.

    The signing of the bill was witnessed by principal officers of the House and members of the State Executive Council.

     

     

     

  • Yuguda, Aliyu, Wada present budgets

    •Bauchi N137.3b, •Niger N83.8b, •Kogi N130.99b 

    Bauchi State Governor Isa Yuguda, his Niger and Kogi counterparts, Babangida Aliyu and Idris Wada, yesterday presented the 2013 budget proposals to the states’ Assemblies.

    The governors said the budgets would lead to accelerated development in the states.

    Yuguda presented a N137,342,108,137 budget proposal, giving the Ministry of Education N5,566,347,686.

    The Commission for Youth and Womens Rehabilitation and Development got N4,432,205,940.

    The proposal is tagged: Budget of sustainable development.

    Yuguda proposed N63,348,292,151 for recurrent expenditure and N73,993,816,176 for capital expenditure.

    Giving details of the budget proposal, the governor told the lawmakers that N94,538,869,048 is for recurrent revenue. From this, N10,038,869,048 is to come from Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) and N84,500,000,000 from statutory allocation.

    A breakdown of the recurrent expenditure showed that N25,992,985,052 is for personnel cost. Overhead takes N23,864,115,893; consolidated revenue fund charges is N13,491,191,206, making a total of N63,348,292,151.

    The consolidated revenue fund charges comprise pension and gratuity of N2,312,000,000; public debt charges and debt servicing take N8,714,939,436 and public officers’ salary is N2,464,251,770, totalling N13,491,191,206.

    The government projected that Bauchi State would receive N73,933,816,176 from an opening balance of N500,000,000. Transfer from consolidated revenue funds is N31,190,576,897; internal loans, including development bonds, are projected to fetch N7,270,000,000; Federal Government grant is N7,814,961,045, and technical assistance is N524,629,115.

    External development is expected to contribute N6,294,457,920; local government joint projects, N15,000,000,000 and miscellaneous N3,509,296,000.

    Justifying the expenditure in the outgoing year’s budget, Yuguda explained that his administration touched critical sectors of the state in the last five years.

    The governor promised that the government would improve on its achievements.

    Aliyu presented the budget to the House of Assembly in Minna, the state capital. It is 9.2 per cent less than the N95billion appropriation for the outgoing fiscal year.

    He said N71.7billion would be for recurrent expenditure and N12.06billion for capital receipts.

    The governor told the lawmakers that the budget would be implemented with N53.7billion to be generated from the statutory Federation Account allocation; N8.5billion from the Value Added Tax (VAT); N2.8billion expected from the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) and N6.6billion from Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).

    He said the recurrent expenditure, put at N46.7billion, comprises N25.1billion for personnel cost; N15.04billion for overhead and N6.5billion for consolidated fund charges.

    Giving a breakdown, Aliyu said with the allocation of N11.3billion, the economic sector takes the lion’s share of the proposed bill, followed by the social sector with N10.9billion and the regional sector with N4.6 billion.

    The governor said N10.08billion goes to the administrative sector. Science and technology gets N50million.

    Aliyu reassured the residents that his administration would continue its free education policy to cushion the effect of the global economic meltdown on parents and encourage more children to attend school.

    According to him, agricultural mechanisation would be boosted to generate income and create jobs for the people.

    Aliyu added that his administration would, next year, concentrate on provision, maintenance and improvement of water schemes.

    The governor said the Mokwa, Gwada, and Ibeto water schemes would be reactivated, adding that the Kuta water supply scheme would be completed.

    Speaker Adamu Usman said the budget would be given speedy attention.

    Wada said the N130,996,844,415

    proposal, tagged: Budget of transformation, would meet the aspiration of the residents.

    The proposal is the governor’s first since he assumed office on January 27.

    He said capital expenditure would take N65,595,793,246 and the recurrent expenditure N65,401,510,169.

    The budget, Wada said, was increased by N4.7billion or 3.5 per cent over the outgoing year’s budget.

    According to him, the increase would enable his administration to meet the rising challenges of the state.

     

  • Abia budgets N134.148b

    The Abia State Government will spend N134, 148, 037,590 billion.

    This represents an increase of N4,188,712,420billion or 3.2per cent over this year’s budget outlay of N129,959,325,170billion next year.

    Presenting the budget, called Budget of Hope to the House of Assembly yesterday in Umuahia, the state capital, Governor Theodore Orji said it is targeted at capital project development to address the critical issues in Vision 20.20.20.

    The governor said the state would next year focus more on how to increase its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) to make it less dependent on Federal Allocations.

    He said the state would adopt direct bank lodgment, adding that it would expand its revenue base.

    Orji said the IGR would be N34,940,133,420 billion, representing an increase of 57.37per cent over this year’s 26.05per cent of the total budget outlay of N134,148,037,590 billion, or 30.94per cent of N112,943,586,87billion projected revenue.

    The governor said the recurrent expenditure is N67,820,454,270billion against this year’s recurrent expenditure of N58,838,997,070billion, which is an increase of N8,981,457,200billion, or 15.26per cent, while the capital expenditure is N66,327,583,320billion for next year.

    He told the lawmakers that there would be massive road construction and reconstruction, while major projects would be completed.

    According to him, the 17 local governments will be encouraged to set aside some funds to maintain rural roads.

    Speaker Ude Oko-Chukwu assured the governor that the Assembly would give accelerated passage to the budget to enable the executive implement it effectively.

    The Speaker said the lawmakers were willing to sacrifice their holidays during the Yuletide to accelerate their work for the benefit of the state and its residents.

  • Mimiko budgets N10b to buy votes, PDP alleges

    THE Director-General of the Olusola Oke Campaign Organisation (OOCO), Dr. Dare Bada, yesterday alleged that Governor Olusegun Mimiko has set aside N10 billion to buy votes from the electorate during Saturday’s poll.

    But Bada insisted that the PDP candidate, Olusola Oke, would defeat Mimiko in the election.

    He said the PDP standard bearer would defeat Mimiko because he has not performed.

    Bada said the party relies on the people who in the last two months have expressed their willingness to vote for the PDP candidate in the October 20 poll.