THE Presidential candidate of the Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party, ANRP, 2019 general elections Tope Fasua, has criticised the federal government’s plan to reduce the cost of governance as a way of stabilising the economy, describing it as ‘Big on Tokenism’.
Fasua said the plan can only yield minimum effect considering the nation’s huge borrowings from foreign countries.
During a Public Conscience Radio Program produced by the Progressive Impact Organization for Community Development, PRIMORG, in Abuja, Fasua said the spending cut shouldn’t be narrowed down to travels alone.
Fasua who is also the founder and Chief Executive Officer, CEO of Global Analytics Consulting Limited, reiterated that there is not much to make out of the renewed steps towards the reduction.
He said the travelling habit of government officials in Nigeria is as high as 50 times in a year, utilizing the taxpayers’ money.
Cutting down the number of travel times, just to reduce cost is very ridiculous, he said.
“We’re talking about a country that is borrowing to survive with struggling taxpayers and so many poor people.”
He said travel issues in Nigeria have two implications, stating that aside from the monetary aspect, there are the good intentions of government which would result in nothing because of the unavailability of the persons expected to drive the nation.
He said there are other resource-sapping issues leading to wastage. This includes hiring foreign consultants, especially in areas of reforming the public sector
He criticized the habits of Nigerians moving the country’s resources overseas, and advised government to start patronizing made-in-Nigeria products.
The ANRP candidate also identified the building of presidential lodges in various states as wastage, saying the president has never slept in some and most have started dilapidating.
On Nigeria’s Budget, Fasua said the over N10 trillion budgeted is not enough because the government usually expend the money wrongly, and the impact doesn’t get to ordinary people.
“Nigeria is not employing the Performance-Based Budgeting System, but still practice the Envelop Budgeting, which affects accountability,” he noted.
He advised that idle civil servants wasting away in government’s ministries, departments and agencies should be deployed to sectors that require extra services, like the health and education sectors.
Lukman Abolade is an Investigative reporter with The ICIR. Reach out to him via [email protected], on twitter @AboladeLAA and FB @Correction94