Last year, the Federal Government lamented the poor implementation of the 2008 budget even as it criticized the phenomenal return of unspent monies from MDAs. Sadly, government had measured budget implementation success or failure by the amount of monies spent or returned.
For the first quarter of 2009, budget implementation is estimated at 20.68 percent. This translates to N33.26 billion utilised out of N160.84 billion released by the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (OAGF). Shouldn’t we be concerned with how the monies are spent given that budgeted funds are being expended without any visible impact on the masses?
Major inter-city highway roads and intra-city roads are still in deplorable state; deepening darkness everywhere (even government reserved areas are not exempted); security of life and property not guaranteed anywhere; our education sector in shambles (ASUU is presently on indefinite strike); industries being lured away to neighboring countries because of our poor infrastructural environment, and food security critically threatened.
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Where have all the spent monies gone to? In fact, the federal ministry of works is even reputed to have 71.68 percent implementation level. Where are the roads, bridges and houses on which money could have been spent?
Budget performance in Nigeria is shrouded in many hitches. Politicians want to use it to play politics; some contractors use it as entitlement of the national cake while the government uses it as a show of performance without impacting actions. Imagine that the 2009 budget is still awaiting review at the parliament.
Funds allocated to lawmakers for constituency projects are spent but without any drop of it at he constituencies to create impact on the rural populace.
Without due process of monitoring budget implementation, we would keep deceiving ourselves, believing that we are implementing budgets. Lawmakers should exercise their oversight functions by closely watching the executive’s implementation of budgets.
In Nigeria today, everybody individually improvises in areas like fueling of generators to keep darkness and heat away for some time, sinking their boreholes to have water, hiring security guards or vigilante groups for security, and creating jobs to survive as companies engage in mass dismissal of employees etc.
We have cases where contractors are paid without executing the projects and yet such spent monies are represented as utilised but definitely without any impact. There must be a new orientation as regards our data estimates. There should be more transparency on what amount was budgeted for what projects. Budget implementation estimates should not just be an estimate of how that is spent but more importantly on what.
Budget implementation should be measured by the execution of projects actually budgeted for initially. Due process should not only be limited to the procurement stage but extended to the monitoring of the projects to ensure that the earmarked projects are actually executed. We cannot say a budget has performed well just because the released monies are spent. Spent on what? How was it spent? Government must begin to build the capacity of civil servants in the dynamics of project management. The civil servants should have some form of expertise and know-how on projects being earmarked and executed so that contractors don’t just feed on their ignorance of the projects to the detriments of the citizens who would later not feel any impact of any budget.
