For over a week after the news of its many errors broke, I deliberately stopped perusing any published news or listening to broadcasts that touched on Nigeria’s 2016 Budget. The few news headlines I saw were riling. The contents of some of the many scribbled opinions were annoying. And the actions of the architects of the reason for the hubbub were infuriatingly disappointing.
Why did a mighty and massive machine of the Federal Government fail to do the needful? How come the ‘T’ was left uncrossed and the ‘I’ stripped nude without any dotting? The national budget, upon which the lifeline of a struggling nation will lean for 12 months, was left in an un-chaperoned orphanage. The document was a basket full of errors.
It didn’t jolt me. Nor did I feel any consternation when commentators and opinion peddlers from various planets and woodworks jumped on the big boo-boo of the Muhammadu Buhari administration. Some of them did so for different kinds of closeted reasons. And many did for the true and sincere love-of-country. If you read between the lines, amid the written and verbalized opinions, you should decipher why who said what.
Whether enemies lurking around in the clefts and cracks of the Federal Government pulled a fast one on the President and his men; whether it was a deliberate move to pad the budget and illegally funnel Nigeria’s melting money into some private purses or it was just an innocent error of omission or commission; the Buhari administration blew this one big time through the roof of incomprehensibility.
It was reported that in some instances in the budget, the same purchase of vehicles, computers and furniture were replicated 24 times, totaling N46.5 billion (about $234 million) and a whopping sum of N795 million was penned down for a website update of one ministry in the N6.1 trillion budget. Some non-partisan and reputable experts drew the people’s attention to spending proposals described as suspicious and wasteful amounting to N111.32 billion, which includes N53.7 million repeated 52 times; N37.8 million appearing over 369 times and a N3.9 billion allocation for the presidential clinic that exceeds funds designated for all 17 of the country’s teaching hospitals combined.
The most comical line-item in the busted budget was the inclusion of the sum of N31m set aside as rent for the Presidential Villa. We all know that the massive and sprawling Aso Rock real-estate was built by the people from the people’s money and for those who will lead the people to lay their heads as they serve.
Before the flaring up of the many criticisms, the government itself detected the errors and cued lawmakers to effect an immediate correction. Lawmakers didn’t budge. The Budget and Planning Ministry knew it had flopped badly and attempted to clean up the smearing mess after Buhari and his men had been called different kinds of ugly names. The Ministry blamed the bungle on the new budgeting system that its bureaucrats are still groping around to understudy.
These were the ‘bad’ things around the 2016 budget. The first casualty of the mishap was the Director General in charge of the Budget Office of the Federation, Yahaya Gusau, who was replaced by Tijani Abdullahi, a fellow of the Certified National Accountants of Nigeria. Thereon, the reset button was pushed.
Was there any shred of good in the document? Yes, there were! And that should be highlighted now that the Federal Government has admitted that the buck stops with President Muhammadu Buhari.
When he was ascending the saddle as head of the South Africa Government, Nelson Mandela made a vow to his people. He said, “We pledge ourselves to liberate our people from the bondage of poverty, deprivation, suffering, gender and other discrimination”.
Poverty is bondage, no doubt. A country like Nigeria, where 120 million people are considered poor, is in bondage. And a president who moves to fight the evil to a standstill is a freedom-fighter.
In the 2016 Budget, Buhari proposes to spend half-a-trillion naira on the poor. He calls it social investment with six social safety plans that would reduce high levels of poverty and vulnerabilities, while also increasing Nigeria’s Human Development Index on the global UN rankings. There is the Conditional Cash Transfer, which will enable one million extremely poor Nigerians to receive a direct stipend of N5,000 monthly in 2016. In a nation where, historically, the government takes from the people and robs them, this is the first time that a government will be giving back to the poor a total of about N60billion.
Buhari is joining forces with the World Bank and the Bill Gates Foundation to enhance a smooth sail of the programme. Imagine what will happen to consumer spending and confidence in this dwindling economy if this becomes a living program for the next four years of his presidency?
In the same budget is the Homegrown School Feeding Programme that is estimated to gulp N96 billion. The one-meal-a-day programme will feed school children for free through the school year. The attractiveness of the initiative has spurred the Imperial College in the United Kingdom to partner with the government on this initiative. All local economies will receive a significant boost and learning will be enhanced in classrooms across Nigeria.
We must not overlook the 500,000 direct jobs proposal, where unemployed graduates would be trained and hired to become volunteer teachers in their communities while looking for jobs in their chosen profession. It is also in the budget. There is also in that document a Youth Employment plan that would take 370,000 non-graduates youths through skills acquisition and vocational training programmes. For the artisans and market women who specialize in small scale trading, there is the Micro Credit scheme where one million Nigerians will get a one-time soft loan of N60, 000 each through the Bank of Industry.
Why must we gloss over the Free Education plan for students of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics in which government will pay tuition for 100,000 students? These lofty ideas are all in Buhari’s 2016 Budget. When the National Assembly passes the document, these programmes will hopefully receive life immediately without any prejudice.
While some people, who had the opportunity to serve in government in the past, were sharing Nigeria’s commonwealth between their cronies and the country’s treasures were being thrashed and stacked in banks abroad, as well as invested in phony real-estate in far-away lands, the Muhammadu Buhari administration focused its budget on the poor.
Regarding corruption or profligacy, it is an easy call for this writer not to be suspicious of Buhari. It never crosses my mind because of the President’s pedigree and antecedents of modesty and contentment in life. While other leaders are stacking up riches for themselves, he refuses to be driven by the treasures or pleasures of life, over which many people in authority in Nigeria are killing themselves.
Those who claim deliberate fraud are rambling rhetoricians. There were errors in the budget; but was there any intent to defraud? I don’t think so. Government is about the people and Buhari’s actions, regarding fighting for those who have no strength to fight for themselves as reflected in this budget, are satisfactory to those who have an open mind.
The Chinese teacher and philosopher, Confucius, once said, “In a country well-governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of”. I give this President kudos for addressing poverty in a country that not one single person has a reason to be hungry.
PUNCH
END
sincerely, i strongly believe in the government of PMB. fine, errors were found in the proposed budget for 2016, but this was not enough to crucify this government. It is so clear that the government meant well for the general masses and the general masses have to mean well for themselves so as not allow themselves to be used by those who benefit from the instability in the country to fustrate the effort of PMB administration. We all have got to be patient with the government in the re-building process embarked upon. God bless Nigeria. let us go with the Yoruba adage which goes does “tita riro la n kola, to ba jina tan a di oge” i.e the process on building can be stressful but we will enjoy the structure after completion.