Budget Hula-Hoop

By Haneefah Adamu 

A budget is a government’s most important financial plan that guides the procedures of drawing up its socio-economic strategies for a year. In the budgeting process of a democratic country, all three arms of government come to play. The president and the executive council deliberate on the proposed budget to ensure equitable allocation of funds in order of priority, which will ensure continual growth of the national economy. The president then proposes the budget to the legislature, where it is debated and approved. Failure to completely implement it will lead to a summon by the judiciary.

On the 9th of October 2012, President Goodluck Jonathan proposed a whopping sum of N4.92 trillion as budget for fiscal 2013, adding that this year’s focus will, “belong to the farmer, the investor, the entrepreneur, the youth and the elderly.” However, after an examination of the budget, the proposal confirms government’s leaning for waste, poor planning and misplaced priorities. This goes to show how unaccountable and visionless a so-called democratic government is.

During his two terms of eight years, President Olusegun Obasanjo did not fully implement even one of the eight budgets drawn up. All the legislature did was threaten to impeach him, and it remained a threat. The same happened with his successor, Late President Yar’adua, whose tenure was short lived. He was also threatened with impeachment on the basis of selective implementation of the 2009 Appropriation Act.

With the look of things, it is not hard to say if President Jonathan is taking cue from his predecessors, because only 41 percent of the 2012 budget has been implemented, and the legislatures are at his neck with the threat of impeachment. I say the vicious circle continues. Nonetheless, the National Assembly is currently insisting on full implementation of the 2012 budget before its approval of 2013. I hope this will be another chance for the National Assembly to break away from its shameful past and channel public expenditure away from consumption and towards capital growth and the spur of productive activities.

The budget Nigeria needs should focus mainly on how to expand revenue by drastically reducing poverty; rapidly promoting private sector job growth and cutting waste in public funds. There is also the need to improve the business climate. Unfortunately, the 2013 budget offers just a little in all of these.

Therefore, the legislature should apply itself more rigorously to analyzing this budget. We cannot afford to carry on mediocrity while the rest of the world is moving on.