By Yinka Odumakin
WHEN I wrote “Budget Without Planning ” weeks back in this column about the hollow ritual we have made of a serious business , I had  no idea of what was coming our way in the 2017 version.

The authors of our budget have mastered the art of cutting off the people from the budget process by reeling out volumes that the everyday people are too encumbered to read.I doubt  if any president can even go through them line-by-line.The 2016 budget was 1810 pages!I pointed out weeks ago that Lee Kwan Yew did not have more than a 16-page budget any year, yet moved Singapore from third world to first.Our own budgets only move the people from poverty to penury while making billionaires out of its paddlers.

It is within this context that we have to interrogate the highest in seven years figures for recurrent expenditure in the 2017 budget estimates presented to the National Assembly by the President mid-December.

That the Federal Government will be running a more expensive government this year came clear in the breakdown given  by Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udo Udoma, which indicated a personnel cost budget at seven-year high of N1.86 trillion. This is showing about 8.8 per cent higher than the 2016 figure of N1.71 trillion, despite purported elimination of ghost workers and other leakages since last year, which government said had saved it several billions of Naira in personnel costs.

In the votes for recurrent expenditure, the Ministry of Interior has the largest allocation of N482.7billion, followed by the Ministry of Education which has N390billion, Defence N325billion, Health N252billion. These figures represent about 70% of of the combined provision for personnel and overhead costs in 2017.

The  Federal Government had consistently dropped its personnel cost for four consecutive years, from N1.85 trillion in 2011 to N1.65 trillion by 2014, but increased the figure to N1.71 trillion last year and now to N1.86 trillion. The government also plans to spend N229.8 billion on overheads, up massively by 40.7 per cent from N163.39 billion budgeted last year.

The President has promised the country that the 2017 budget will end recession in the land. That optimism does not hold water with this kind of budgeting that is loaded on the side of recurrent expenditure.

As President -elect, he spoke eloquently about the damage of recurrent expenditure to our system and promised to do something about it  in April 2015 in Daura for the speedy development of the country:

“Over 90 per cent of Nigerian budget is on recurrent expenditure. There must be much money available for capital expenditure to provide more infrastructure in our industries that will attract investments and develop the country.”

He said  then that was because of the relevance infrastructure had in the development of a country.

President  Buhari said this would assist Nigeria to realise her dream of becoming one of the world’s developed economies.

He said infrastructure development will also create job opportunities for the teeming unemployed youth in the country.

The Yoruba say that it is easier to cook vegetable with the mouth and to weed hectares of the land with the wave of the hand.

The President is now face-to-face with the Nigerian reality and must have his personal frustrations with a decadent system that is not moved by personal integrity. The structures are fundamentally defective and until we restructure it, there is very little any leader can do to change the state of affairs .

If a forensic audit is carried out, it may be found out that the increase in recurrent may be as a result of paddlers moving their trade to the recurrent side since it is not usually the focus of anti-graft agencies and fraud in that area is much more difficult to detect and prove unlike in the capital area.

Nobody can check the activities of those milking  the system except we rebuild our institutions and have a system that discourages crookedness.

In a paper titled “Costs of Governance And Options For Its Reduction In Nigeria”, Adeolu Odewale and Evans Osabuohien made these useful suggestions among others :

 Optimal cabinet size

One of the major cost of governance, is the larger than optimal size of the executive cabinet. It is possible to reduce the cost of governance by ensuring an optimal size of cabinet, where merit and core competence are the primary reasons for appointment to serve in public offices. For instance, to have a minister, a minister of state with several special advisers and a permanent secretary, plus many other portfolios in a single ministry is an abysmal waste of scarce resources.

A legislative instrument that will reduce to an optimum the number of ministries and the cabinet (because so many of them have interwoven roles) will cut down costs. In fact, we do not think we need a coterie of full time special advisers. Instead, competent individuals engaged on a part-time basis could give well- meaning advice to government. In addition, a part-time legislature will help cost reduction. A case where lawmakers have their business and only come for sittings when there are meetings, will go a long way to reduce the corruption menace and cut down administrative expenses.

Fiscal federalism

Fiscal decentralisation and federalism is also another possible way to reduce governance costs. There is every indication that when the political zones are adopted as federating units (with states and local governments) costs will be reduced.

The near homogeneity, cultural and historical affinity within the zones will ensure stability and good governance. Also the overbearing influence of the central government will be drastically reduced The internal political and economic autonomy that will ensue, will reduce the agitation and aggression that has resulted in colossal waste (Okoye, 2005; Dunmoye, 2002; Alade et al., 2003).This is in line with the findings of Kwon (2003) using the Brennan and Buchanan decentralisation hypothesis in which case fiscal decentralisation decreased the size of the central budget of South Korea while boosting the viability of the federating units. If ethnic units serve as federating units, we can reduce the costs of governance by avoiding the centralisation of activities where co-operative costs will result to pareto-inferior to non-cooperative outcomes (Kimenyi, 2001).

Multi- ethnic societies create conflict of interest between voters of different groups and between their representatives in parliament. This creates the conflict of policy preferences and a bundle of inefficient public policies arrive through logrolling.

Appropriate functional decentralisation will help to significantly minimize the waste undue centralisation causes (Persson, Roland and Tabellini, 2003). Decentralised policy-making units are efficient and are more responsive than central units particularly when there are different preferences, a diversity in economic structure and geographic distances and variations in cultural history (Bednar et al., 1999).”

Re:Nigeria in Crisis:It is not about Jonathan or Buhari

OUR  biggest problem is NOT President Muhammadu Buhari, nor was it former President Goodluck Jonathan – even as “wonderful” as  his Government was. Our abiding and biggest problem is our asinine and unjust political and economic arrangement that engenders ethno-religious strife and ensures the continuing reproduction of poor governance at almost every tier and arm of government in Nigeria.

The renewed and growing clamour for a restructuring of the country and the consequential devolution of economic powers to Nigeria’s federating units is one borne out of patriotism and self-preservation, and the two concepts are not mutually exclusive. Again and again it has been reiterated that it is in all our interests to re-work our political and economic systems.

We know we will make no real progress practising an unjust system that generates so much strife, hate and violence; yet for selfish reasons our political political leadership persist on the journey to self-immolation.

It is submitted that  the business of a modern national government in the 21st century is the development and implementation of  socio-economic policies that improve the lives of the people. A government faced with mounting economic problems should not be busy perpetually playing the role of fire-fighters, putting off different sectarian fires across the country, fires that have and continue to be occasioned by the structural and systemic flaws of a faulty and corrupt political-economic system.

Feedback

Re:Nigeria in Crisis:It is not about Jonathan or Buhari

Our “patch-patch” attitude to governance and our well-being is not taking us anywhere, other than over the precipice – if we continue on this trajectory and the fervent opposition to Federalism from the North, which is largely inspired by fear of economic loss or ruin, as a result of the fiscal component of Federalism has been a major impediment to the adoption of Federalism by the Nigerian Federation.

The fear that Federalism is tantamount to the parochial idea of “Resource Control” and will entail the total control of OUR precious oil and gas revenue is unfounded, especially seeing that the economic bankruptcy of Northern Nigeria is not the goal of federalism, nor is it in the interest of southern Nigeria to have a faltering Northern Nigeria.

Federalism is NOT resource-control, whilst a sense of ownership is given to states or communities wherein natural resources are located, the proposed Nigerian fiscal Federalism, does not entail the absolute control of resources by sub-national governments. Federalism is a system of accommodation, one that can be engineered and reviewed to suit  and  serve the legitimate aspirations of ethnic nationalities in a Country.

Furthermore, the terms of our proposed political-economic system, including its fiscal component was enunciated in the 2014 National Conference Report. The report largely canvasses for a simple review of items under the Exclusive list of the 1999 Constitution with a view to devolving economic power to the sub-national units that constitute Nigeria.

A simple devolution of economic powers to Nigeria’s federating units would engender a lot of positives for the country. It would greatly reduce the frenzied contest by ethnic nationalities for the control of the centre – the sole dispenser of goodies; thus restoring much needed social cohesion. It would also engender good governance at the sub-national level by occasioning the emergence of serious minded State Governors, seeing that the  recurrent expenditure of states will have to be financed via the internally generated revenue of states, only men and women prepared to think and to work will present themselves for elective office, knowing that they will not be receiving hand-outs from the Government at the centre.

The benefits of the practice of Federalism nay the decentralisation of power will cascade into every facet of our national life, from economic to security, to social cohesion, to power generation and lots more. It is time to call on the current APC led administration to keep its word by abiding by the contents of its manifesto and consequently ensuring the practice of FEDERALISM,  in order that we may live peaceable and prosperous lives.– Ugochukwu Joseph Amasike, lawyer, Lagos State,

The reason i buy Vanguard every Tuesday is you.

I have always said it ,not about Godluck, and not about  Buhari.

But a systemic, institutional and constitutional problem.

And our leaders are serving in deceptive manner  and for self.

Who and where  are these veritable men?

I read how  Peter Obi  joined politics through APGA.-Nnamdi Okonkwo.