President Muhammadu Buhari
The first time this budget analysis series ran was for the 2016
budget; and it becomes visible each day that the 1810 page document was a
horrid, hurriedly-put, corrupt-conduit-filled piece of executive
cluelessness.
Well, since I’m more of a realist than any of the other-ists, I’ll
just say that the fact that the world lost an entire tree to the making
of the paper it was inked on is a tragedy. We have been given a sequel;
the 2017 budget was presented to the National Assembly by the President
in the presence of the ministers who drafted it- and even slept while
the presentation was on – and it was called the “Budget of Recovery and
Growth.”
If you noticed, it is quite a change from the previous budget of
change just like the government’s change mantra. Here are some quotes
from the President’s speech on what when passed, will be arguably the
most important document in the country – sorry, just checked and it is
63 paragraphs long so I will just skip to analysing the 2017 budget as
we await the implementation report of the 2016 budget.
The 2017 budget is N7.298 trillion. According to the government, this comprises of
i. Statutory transfers of N419.02 billion;
ii. Debt service of N1.66 trillion;
iii. Sinking fund of N177.46 billion to retire certain maturing bonds;
iv. Non-debt recurrent expenditure of N2.98 trillion; and
v. Capital expenditure of N2.24 trillion (including capital in Statutory Transfers).
We will begin with the State House budget, which is,
42,917,666,214. This almost double what the previous government budgeted
for this in 2015 which was 23,465,865,117. Out of this, 19,970,000,000
is the total capital budget while the total recurrent budget stands at
22,947,666,214. The total overhead is 10,171,082,268 and that for total
personnel is 12,776,583,946.
This is the first piece in the #SaatahBudgetSeries2017, and I will
be looking at the budget of the State House (which was referred to as
Presidency in previous budgets).
STATE HOUSE
There are 16 agencies under the State House, and they are: State
House Headquarters, The Office of the President, The Office of the Vice
President, Office of the Chief of Staff to the President, Office of the
Chief Security Officer to the President, State House Medical Centre,
State House Lagos Liaison Office, Office of the Senior Special Assistant
to the President on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGS), National
Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS). Kuru, Bureau of
Public Enterprises, National Emergency Management Agency, Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission, Bureau of Public Procurement, Nigeria
Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, Nigeria Atomic Energy
Commission and its centres, and Office of the Chief Economic Adviser to
the President which funny enough the President only appointed in August
of this year.
The first piece of poo I was hit with, ironically, was the “Sewage
Charges” budget of the State House Headquarters” It was put at
52,827,800. That means 144,733 every day. That’s a lot of poo as far as
the eye can see. Compare this with the “Sewage Charge” budget for 2015
which was 4,957,143 and for 2016 which was 6,121,643. This simply means
the poo charge went up by 1050% compared with the 2015 budget, and 850%
when compared with the 2016 budget. The 52,827,800 question I want to
ask now is what exactly are they shitting there?
The State House Headquarters budget for “Honorarium/Sitting
Allowance” is 556,592,736. Let me remind you that the previous
government budgeted 174,471,371 for same item in 2015, while in 2016,
this administration jacked it up to 507,518, 861.
The State House Headquarters still continues to budget for
“Residential Rent.” This is something I have failed to understand up
till now and I wouldn’t mind someone explaining it to me. That aside,
the amount budgeted for this “Residential Rent” in 2015 was 22,459,575,
while in 2016 it was put at 27,735,643. I don’t know how or why, but in
the 2017 budget of “Recovery and Growth,” this same “Residential Rent”
went up to 77,545,700. Whoever the Landlord of that State House
Headquarters is, in this economy, he must be a very lucky and fortunate
chap.
There is an 8,539,200 budget for “Anti-Corruption” and I’m perplexed as to what exactly it is.
The last time there was a budget for “Motor Vehicles” or anything
like that was in the 2014 budget by the last administration and it was a
total of 132,200,000. This government came in in 2016 and somehow
concluded that the State House Headquarters did not have enough “Motor
Vehicles,” so they started by budgeting 877,015,000 which was something
like a 650% increase from the 2014 budget for the same item.
The State House Headquarters still doesn’t think there are enough
“Motor Vehicles,” so in 2017 they have budgeted a total of 197,000,000
for the purchase of “Motor Vehicles” and “Buses.” At this rate, by 2019,
this government would’ve succeeded in buying enough “Motor Vehicles” to
drive the entire country off the edge.
2016 will end up being one of the darkest years in this country in
relation to power supply. So, I do not understand where the State House
Headquarters got megawatts from in 2016 that they have now budgeted
319,625,753 for “Electricity Charge” in 2017. Just so you know, the
“Electricity Charge” for 2016 was put at 45,332,433.
The 2016 State House Headquarters budget for the
“Rehabilitation/Repairs of Residential Buildings” was 642,568,122, while
in 2017, I don’t know, but it looks like an enormous asteroid managed
to hit and destroy the residential building at the State House
Headquarters because what is budgeted for “Rehabilitation/Repairs of
Residential Buildings” happens to be 5,625,752,757.
As usual, knowing that we have travelling President, 739,487,784
has been budgeted for “International Travel & Transport.” Last year
only the Vice President budgeted for books. This year neither the
President nor his Vice budgeted for it. Apparently, they’re tired of
reading.
Just like in last year’s budget, the entire capital budget for the
National Emergency Management Agency is for the “Construction of Office
Building,” all 374,473,456 of it.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has budgeted
5,999,070,468 for the “Construction/Provision of Office Buildings.” In
2016 they spent 58,434,683 on that. If you do the math, that’s an
increase of over 10,000% and qualifies as an economic and financial
crime.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission also budgeted
230,536,000 for “Legal Services.” I don’t know if this is enough, but
since they say it is; and as long as none of that amount goes to the
case-bumbling, Twitter SAN, Festus Keyamo, no wahala.
In 2016 the EFCC budgeted 93,136,000 for “Motor Vehicles,” but
since maybe the corruption they should be fighting has gotten faster,
they have upped that to 455,000,000. So if you had a plan of running
away from the EFCC, I am sorry, they will have almost half a billion
Naira worth of cars to chase you with. It is a car race now you know.
There a line item in the EFCC budget that mentions the “Procurement
and Upgrade of Microsoft Product Licences” which 142,237,198 was set
aside for. This is as vague as something can get, and when it comes to
corruptly enriching yourself, being vague is the best bet.
In 2016 3,260,000 was budgeted by the EFCC for the “Purchase of
Photocopiers” while in the 2017 budget 13,755,000 is the magic number.
1,100,595,088 has been budgeted for the “Furnishing of the New Head
Office” whose construction cost in the 2016 budget was put at
7,912,502,911. Now, guess what. There is a budget for the “Consultancy
of the Head Office Project” and 244,727,624 is budgeted for it. I am
sorry; you will have to guess what again. Let me not stress you,
4,583,616,838 is budgeted for the “Completion of Ongoing New Head Office
Building Construction” which 7,912,502,911 was budgeted for in 2016,
bringing the total to 12,496,119,749.
For those of you that numbers scare, that is over twelve billion
Naira for the construction of the EFCC new head office. If the budget
for the “Furnishing” of same building is taken into consideration, it
becomes almost fourteen billion Naira. That is the anti-corruption
model; build a fourteen billion Naira edifice to scare corrupt
individuals and firms.
The Bureau of Public Procurement has budgeted 52,957,485 for
“Defence Software” and I find myself wondering when they became the
Ministry of Defence. But things change, just like this government wants
us to believe. I wish them a happy defence.
In the course of going through the 2107 budget, I noticed a
significant change. There no longer existed a column to show the state
of a project. Previous budgets had the “New” and “Ongoing” tags
designated to line items, and it made it easier to understand or rather
follow the money. We might not know, but that little omission, which I
believe was on purpose, has the ability to make corrupt practices
invisible.
The 2017 budget is beginning to look more like a poo-storm, but
that shouldn’t be a problem because as you saw from the beginning, they
started by budgeting generously for it.
We have come to the end of the first part of my budget analysis;
hopefully the second part will have something better to offer us.
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