The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) has published a pullout of frivolous line items in the 2023 proposed Federal Government Budget that will save the country N610,758,793,547.30 if implemented by the National Assembly.

In early October, President Muhammadu Buhari had presented the N20.5 trillion 2023 appropriation bill to the National Assembly.

But in its new publication titled: However, CSJ in the publication titled: “Frivolous, Inappropriate, Unclear And Wasteful Estimates In The 2023 Federal Appropriation Bill” said Nigeria’s revenue is simply inadequate to fund fundamental expenditure.

The Lead Director of CSJ, Eze Onyekpere observed that Nigeria is undergoing an economic and fiscal crisis of monumental proportions adding that the nation is snatching economic crisis from the jaws of circumstances that support an oil windfall scenario.

He noted that instead of reaping the benefits of global oil price increase, Nigeria’s oil income dried up and oil authorities in the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and NNPC Limited told Nigerians questionable stories of oil theft running into 700,000 barrels a day. This amounts to about $70million a day.

As at August 2022, Federal Government of Nigeria’s retained revenue was N4.23trillion while debt service gulped N3.52trillion. The implication is that 83.2% of FGN’s income was dedicated to debt service. Macroeconomic indicators like inflation, interest rates, etc., are all negative.

In the 2023 executive budget proposals, the aggregate expenditure is N20,507,942,180,704 and the expected revenue is N9,725,863,745,173, and the deficit is N10,782,078,435,531. The expected revenue is 47.4% of the expenditure whilst deficit financing will take care of 52.6% of the expenditure. Debt service at N6.557in is 67.4% of the expected aggregate revenue of N9.725tn.

With this scenario, Onyekpere said, the reasonable expectation is that every available resource in the 2023 federal budget proposal would be targeted at concrete deliverables. Indeed, frivolous, inappropriate, unclear and wasteful expenditure should be eliminated to the minimum. A larger part of the funding of the budget will be borrowed and it will be foolhardy to borrow and waste the borrowed funds. There are so many duplicated projects; projects that are vaguely described and without locations; a play on words using terms like empowerment and sensitization, etc.

“Leadership should be by example. The request of annual routine maintenance of mechanical/electrical installations of the presidential villa of N7.2bn, perpetual purchase of vehicles is not the way to spend borrowed money. The vote to NASS is a bulk sum of N169bn. The elected representatives of the people should feel the pain, hunger, frustration, hardship, misery, etc., experienced by the people and show empathy, love and a sense of fellow feeling. 50% of this sum is reasonable in the circumstances. In service-wide votes, various funds which have been replicated over the years include special intervention, special intervention SDG’s 1 and special intervention SDG’s 2. Over the years, there is no evidence of the investments in terms of improvements in the living standards of Nigerians. NASS should not approve this without details that will not just be shown to NASS but published on the website of the Budget Office of the Federation like other votes,” he recommended.

According to CSJ’s Lead Director, the National Grazing Reserves under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has been attracting votes in billions every year. “It is an ongoing project. Wait a minute. Where are the grazing reserves located? The Ministry of Science and Technology, the agencies and research institutes under it have so many laudable projects with very small votes that will simply be wasted if they are invested in the current format. The resources are spread too thin that they will not scratch the surface of the challenges they intend to resolve. The Ministry needs to prioritise its activities so that available funds will not be wasted,” he said.

He added that after the completion of several rail tracks by FGN, it is imperative that the private sector be brought in to buy and run the coaches and wagons in a commercialized environment and pay the requisite fees to government which will be used to maintain the rail tracks and other relevant rail infrastructure.

“It is not financially prudent for government to borrow to lay the tracks and keep subsidizing rail transport thereafter. The relevant laws and policies should be amended to facilitate this. The insistence by the Ministry of Aviation to establish a national carrier is mind-boggling. The current votes will be wasted inclusive of previous votes to this white elephant project. Where is the diagnosis of the failed Nigerian Airways? Has anything changed since then,” Onyekpere queried.

He said that the continued public funding of distribution and rural electrification projects is of doubtful legal validity considering the privatisation of the distribution subparts of the electricity value chain. According to him, the scenario is like this: FGN through the Ministry and National Rural Electrification Agency invests heavily in distribution infrastructure and extending electricity to rural areas including providing/replacing transformers and as soon as this is done, the DISCOs move in to start collection of tariffs. A clear case of DISCOs reaping where they did not sow. Even if FGN still partly owns the DISCOs, it should take inventory of its commitments post-privatisation and factor it into the ownership structure and profits of the DISCOs. There is a contradiction in continued investment of public money for private profits, especially when the bulk of the funds are borrowed.

Also, the CSJ Lead Director notes that the 12 River Basin Development Authorities sit on thousands of acres of public land and over the years, get allocations for tractors, farm equipment, implements, fish and livestock replenishment, seeds, processing machinery and implements, etc. he said that they should be revenue centres that remit billions of Naira to FGN instead of the current approach where they gulp money without any meaningful contribution to the revenue. The land, machinery and other infrastructure could be capitalized for collaborations with the private sector for commercial farming that will generate revenue for government. At a minimum, RBDAs should be compelled to fund their personnel and recurrent expenditure pending when they are fully weaned off public funding.

He added that every available fund should be spent with the greatest value for money, tied to a high-level national policy framework and aimed at improving livelihoods, growing the economy, reducing poverty and inequality, adding value, among other things.

“It is against this background that the pullout of frivolous, inappropriate, unclear and wasteful expenditure calls the attention of the executive, legislature, private sector, civil society including the media to these frivolities at a time of grave national crisis,” he said.