IN November 2023, President Bola Tinubu presented N25.7 trillion as the proposed budget for the 2024 fiscal year to the Joint National Assembly. This was his first budget presentation as the president of Nigeria since he assumed office in May 2023.
The proposed budget had a capital expenditure of N8.7 trillion and a recurrent expenditure of N9.92 trillion. The budget deficit was placed at N9.18 trillion, with a projected revenue of N18 trillion.
Days before the presentation, the Federal Executive Council (FEC), on November 27, had approved N26.01 trillion. Upon the presentation, the budget was increased by 5.73 per cent.
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After deliberation was made by the National Assembly, the president passed N28.7 trillion into law on January 1, 2024. This is an increase of N1.2 trillion or 4.36 per cent when compared to the proposed budget.
The breakdown
With a budget of N28.7 trillion passed by the president, the Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the government are expected to spend N24.45 trillion. The amount captures the personnel cost, overheads and capital expenditure of the MDAs. Some other payments including royalties, deductions, debt financing and others are also captured within the purview of this figure.
On another hand, about N1 trillion would be used to offset Statutory Transfer to five agencies namely Niger Delta Development Commission (N338.92 billion), Universal Basic Education Commission (N263.04 billion), National Human Right Commission (N5 billion), North East Development Commission (N131.52 billion), Basic Healthcare Provision Fund (N131.52 billion) and National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (N131.52 billion).
This would bring the budget to N25.45 trillion
Another N3.3 trillion was earmarked to cover the budget of 62 Government Owned Enterprise (N1.88 trillion), TETFund (N700 billion), National Judicial Council (N341.63 billion), National Assembly (N344.85 billion), Public Complaints Commission (N14.46 billion), and INEC (N40 billion).
This will bring the total budget to N28.78, as passed by the president.
The concerns
The Senate suspended a Sentor, Abdul Ningi, for three months over the allegation he brought that the National Assembly padded the 2024 budget. The allegation was hinged on the unclarity of some items of the budget amounting to about N3 trillion. Also, there were allegations of some projects carried out by MDAs without a description and some constituency allocations higher than others.
Findings by The ICIR revealed:
- Unlike the MDA’s budget which is broken down by line items for both the capital and recurrent expenditure, statutory transfers made to some agencies, commissions and GOEs were not clearly explained.
- By this, the public is denied access to the accountability of these agencies. For example, the NASS budget, NJU, TetFund, INEC etc.
- Some capital projects carried out by MDAs do not have a specific location; hence the ability to monitor the procurement process including accountability becomes difficult.
- More than 100 capital projects to be implemented by several MDAs fall under frivolous allocations. See The ICIR report here
- Several MDAs are carrying out projects not related to the mandate-responsibility of the MDAs
Additional findings
A civic non-governmental organisation, BudgIT, disclosed in its report that 33 per cent of the projects worth N632 billion were inserted in the Ministry of Agriculture’s budget, raising its capital budget from N332 billion to N963 billion.
Also, in other Ministries such as Science and Technology, 757 new projects worth N207 billion were added and 263 projects with a value of N242 billion were inserted by the National Assembly.
BudgIT also stated that about 15 MDAs are expected to carry out more than 600 capital projects which they do not have the technical capacity to execute.
The civic organisation recommend that the judiciary explain the power of the National Assembly, make a ruling for the full disclosure of the budget of some agencies of the government and involve civic organisations in the budget deliberations.
Kehinde Ogunyale tells stories by using data to hold power into account. You can send him a mail at jameskennyogunyale@gmail or Twitter: Prof_KennyJames | LinkedIn: Kehinde Ogunyale