 Published
March 28th, 2010
It’s often
said that Nigeria produces the best annual budget in the
whole of sub-Saharan Africa. This assertion cannot be
doubted because the nation is blessed with an intimidating
array of top class financial experts in the Central Bank of
Nigeria (CBN) and ministries in charge of Finance, Planning,
and Budget. Ordinarily, this huge advantage should have
helped to drive Nigeria up the ladder of developing nations
in the world. Nigeria could have by now been counted among
the first twenty industrialised nations on earth. These two
significant feats would have been achieved even if the
federal and state governments had strived to achieve a
moderate 60% budget implementation benchmark since 1997.
Twelve years are enough time for any oil-rich nation like
Nigeria to lay a solid foundation for a massive
industrialisation agenda. This would have no doubt helped to
solve the perennial problems associated with high
unemployment figures, which has also given impetus to the
ravaging force of poverty. High level youth unemployment and
poverty are two major causes of increasing crime rate in the
country.
Over the years, poor budget implementation by the executive
arm of government at the local, state, and federal levels
has sabotaged key public infrastructure such as transport,
power, and communication among others. This sad development
has unfortunately led to a steady increase in the cost of
doing business in Nigeria in the last ten years. Apart from
scaring away foreign investors, several multi-national
companies have either relocated to neighbouring countries or
are contemplating doing so. Nigeria has painfully missed
several opportunities of being a preferred country of
destination for international investors.
A very close observation of the state of the nation would
lead one to the bitter conclusion that the political class
has not been able to appreciate the relationship between
effective budget implementation and national development.
Budgeting is an integral component of constitutional
democracy. Apart from promoting transparency and
accountability in public fund management, budgeting is also
a fiscal instrument for self assessment. Post budget review
activities are used to gauge overall performance. Through
this effort, improvements are made in subsequent exercises.
It is also necessary to note that complete budgeting
protocol entails effective planning, monitoring, and
implementation of recurrent and capital proposals. But
regrettably, budgeting culture in Nigeria mostly begins and
end with planning alone. Oversight functions carried out by
the legislative arm of government in the past as it concerns
budget monitoring have been nothing but mere window
dressings. This fact has helped to condemn budgets as mere
annual rituals. Poor budget implementation in Nigeria is a
huge indictment on both the executive and legislative arms
of government at the local, state, and federal levels.
In all advanced and most developing countries, citizens and
the organised private sector await annual budget release
with nostalgia. This is so because, budget outlines
government’s current fiscal policies. These policies in turn
shape the socio-economic outlook for the year. With this,
investment options and directions are made. Budgets are also
used by the electorates to measure campaign promises made by
politicians. But owing to widespread political apathy and
high illiteracy level in Nigeria, politicians are still able
to deceive the citizenry about their achievements. For
instance, it is common to hear government officials boast of
the number of projects they have executed. Interestingly,
these officials will never attempt to relate their
achievements with the overall budget proposals for the
period under review. This can be termed as budget fraud.
It is very sad to note that no state or federal
administration in Nigeria have been able to achieve up to a
mere 45% annual budget implementation level in the last
twelve years. Administration officials are always quick to
blame abysmal budget performance on dwindling revenue. The
truth is that, our leaders do not still understand the
actual meaning of political power in a constitutional
democracy. Political power is all about offering quality
leadership to better the lots of man and society. On the
strength of this, any politician that cannot mobilise
available human and material resources for human and
societal development, do not have anything doing in
government. Such persons should either resign or be sent
packing by the masses. Under sound political leadership,
Nigeria can survive even without oil and electorates. The
nation’s deep rooted culture of tribalism and corruption are
some of the factors militating against full budget
implementation. Enough political will must therefore be
mustered to eliminate tribalism and corruption from
government business and activities. It is no longer secret
that tribalism and corruption are the root causes of
Nigeria’s many socio-political problems. As long as they
remain unchecked, Nigerian masses will never taste the
dividends of democracy.
With a population of about 150m, effective budget monitoring
and implementation remains one sure route to Nigeria’s
economic and socio-infrastructural rejuvenation. The other
important task the federal government should embark on
immediately is the diversification of the nation’s economic
framework by way of strengthening the non-oil sector. This
will effectively tackle the problems of dwindling revenue.
The time has come for the nation’s political leaders to
realise that apart from economic stagnation and the
resultant collapse of public infrastructure, continuous
failure by government to achieve budget targets may lead to
serious civil actions, which are capable of threatening the
fragile democratic culture in the country.
For now, the over 130m poor Nigerian masses living below
poverty line are at the receiving end of poor budget
implementation. This is so because, even with failed
budgets, the elites- political office holders live far above
poverty line. The frustrations suffered by Nigerian masses
have turned the country into an oil-spill field. They are
just waiting for a match stick. It would definitely be
bloody. Rifles and tanks would be turned on the masses. In
all of these, the truth would always remain. Nigerian elites
do not have the arsenal to kill the underlying spirit of
truth, which the Nigerian masses have on their side. This is
the time for the political class to climb down from their
Olympian height and reason with the masses. Nigeria belongs
to both worlds- Affluence and Poverty.
KALI GWEGWE,
2, Greenvilla-Customs Link Road,
Biogbolo-Epie,
Yenagoa, Bayelsa State.
kaligwegwe@yahoo.com
0806 407 4810
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