By Punch Editorial Board
A sordid scenario Nigerians are all too familiar with played out during the signing of the 2022 Appropriation Bill. The President, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), lamented that the provisions made for about 10,733 projects were reduced, while 6,576 new projects were introduced into the budget by the National Assembly. Buhari argued compellingly that the inclusion of the new provisions totalling N36.59 billion for NASS’s projects in the Service-Wide Vote negates the principles of separation of powers and financial autonomy of the different arms of government. He is right. Nigerians must unite to overcome the tyrannous habit of budget padding by federal legislators.
Buhari complained that the reduction in the provisions for many strategic capital projects in favour of ‘empowerment’ projects was uncalled for since most of the inserted projects relate to matters that are basically the responsibilities of state and local governments. Despite lamenting that the cuts in the provisions for many projects would make them impossible to implement, Buhari still went ahead to sign it, vowing to send a supplementary budget proposal. Indeed, the reckless insertions made by legislators in the 2022 and previous years’ budgets are appalling. The irresponsible habit largely explains why national budgets since the Year 2000 have never been fully implemented and why poverty is rising. After the distortion by the NASS, the budgets are un-implementable.
But this would not be Buhari’s first outburst against such legislative rascality. While assenting to the 2018 Appropriation Bill, he had lamented: “The National Assembly made cuts amounting to N347 billion in the allocations to 4,700 projects submitted to them for consideration and introduced 6,403 projects of their own amounting to N578 billion.” This is disgusting.
Allegations of budget padding by principal officers of the NASS and senior civil servants had resurfaced during the defence of the 2016 budget proposal. Then, some projects worth about N480 billion were inserted. The then Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole, while disowning the health budget details before the parliament, stated, “This was not what we submitted. We’ll submit another one. We don’t want anything foreign to creep into that budget. What we submitted is not there.” Similarly, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, repudiated the ministry’s budget, saying, “No, that is not possible. That was definitely not what was proposed, this cannot be!” Despite this public exposure of fraud, no one was punished.
Soon after, a former Chairman of the Appropriations Committee at the House of Representatives, Abdulmumin Jibrin, alleged that top members of the NASS had introduced unknown projects and inflated estimates into the budget. Despite several threats by the Federal Government, and a Federal High Court order mandating the President to probe those responsible for inserting questionable projects, no one has been brought to book; neither the crooked legislators nor the complicit civil servants. Rather, Buhari continues to condone such monumental parliamentary corruption.
He lamented that about N1 trillion had been appropriated in the 10 years to 2019 for the graft-driven “constituency projects” of federal lawmakers with hardly any impact. Hopes that decisive action, in the form of refusal to accede to further malfeasance and unleashing of the anti-graft agencies on the culprits, have been dashed. Many had also thought that finally, the notorious “constituency projects” would be expunged from subsequent budgets, but the President has continued to include the N100 billion for “zonal intervention” projects such as the sinking of boreholes and construction of drainages. Such activities ought to be within the purview of the LGs.
Worse is that although by law, all projects are to be implemented by government agencies once approved in the Appropriation Act, lawmakers hijack the selection of contractors for the projects in flagrant contravention of the Public Procurement Act. It is all about corruption and self-enrichment at public expense.
Incidentally, several pro-transparency groups, including the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, BudgIT, and Dataphyte, have frequently exposed how such constituency projects are shabbily implemented or completely abandoned. In some instances, items that ought to be distributed are diverted and kept in the homes of lawmakers. In 2019, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission discovered constituency items worth N117 million in the home of then Chairman, Senate Committee on Anti-Corruption. These included 168 motorcycles, 51 tricycles, 203 grinding machines and five transformers which ought to have been distributed by the senator as constituency projects. Rather than prosecute him, the ICPC only ensured that the lawmaker distributed the items immediately. The commission made similar discoveries while monitoring the implementation of constituency projects across the country but rarely filed charges against erring lawmakers. This is not enough to serve as a deterrent.
Although the constitution confers the powers of appropriation on the NASS, such powers are not absolute. Lawmakers have no right to introduce new projects into budget proposals, especially projects that have not undergone environmental impact assessment. Projects require planning, feasibility tests, land acquisition and buy-in by state and local stakeholders. There should be an identified source of funding. Budgeting is an executive document which contains the priority projects of the executive. However, when priority projects are removed outright and unplanned projects of lawmakers are introduced arbitrarily, this frustrates the agenda of the executive and renders budgets un-implementable. Annoyingly, lawmakers never care about funding sources when inserting spending items or creating new agencies.
There should be an end to the chicanery. One option is to take the matter before the Supreme Court for interpretation of the constitution on budgeting. However, past Presidents from Olusegun Obasanjo to Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan have not been courageous enough to do so. Yar’Adua made a move but later backed down.
Another is to tackle it from the crime and law enforcement end. Lawmakers and civil servants implicated in budget padding and contract scams should not be spared. Failure to prosecute offenders has sustained corrupt practices, emboldened, and enriched the perpetrators. The anti-corruption agencies should pursue offenders with tenacious efficiency. The PPA and other extant laws and regulations should be faithfully adhered to; complicit civil servants should be identified, punished, and flushed out of the service.
In the United States – from where Nigeria copied its presidential system – the major role of Congress in the budgeting is creating a framework and setting overall spending limits for the executive arm of government, as well as ensuring that projects are audited. This should be the preoccupation of the NASS, not introducing its own projects into an executive proposal. Buhari should adopt all options to end the NASS’ tyranny.
Originally published at PUNCH