NEWS: NIGERIA - 2016 BUDGET CONTROVERSY AND SOME DETAILS

It will be recalled that 2016 budget had sparked off controversy, with the legislature accusing the Executive of padding and doctoring provisions made by ministries departments and agencies of government.

The controversy deepened when the Federal Ministry of Health disowned the budget proposal submitted on its behalf by the Ministry of Budget and National Planning.
Health Minister, Isaac Adewole, who addressed the Senate Committee on Health during its budget defence session, said the proposal drawn up by the ministry and submitted to the budget office had been doctored and that “foreign” appropriations, different from what was submitted, had been smuggled in.

“We have to look into the details of the budget and re-submit it to the committee,” he said. “This was not what we submitted. We will submit another one. We do not want anything foreign to creep into that budget. What we submitted is not there.”

Earlier the Senate had discovered a sum of N10 billion “questionably smuggled” into the budget of the Ministry of Education for an allegedly questionable subhead.

A senior Presidency official told newsmen that a “budget mafia” was responsible for the embarrassing allocations in the budget.

Just last week, the newly set up unit of the federal ministry of Finance disclosed that Federal government spent N825 billion in three years on travels, maintenance, local and international training, welfare and office stationery / computer consumables. The head of the Efficiency unit set up by the Ministry of Finance Patience Oniha to streamline government overhead expenditure, said that from the study of government overhead expenditure it carried out between 2012 and 2014 on the average 60 per cent of federal government overhead expenditure were incurred through local and international travels, maintenance, local and international training, welfare, office stationary and consumables, honourarium and sitting allowance, meals and refreshment and books.

According to Oniha the Unit, which carried out an extensive and detailed review of the Overhead Expenditure data of the government for the period 2012 to 2014, found that the overhead spending pattern was concentrated on a limited number of items including travel, maintenance, local and international training, welfare and office stationery / computer consumables.

Ms Patience Oniha, stated that “The Cumulative Expenditure on these five items was N825 billion, representing 61 per cent of the Cumulative Total Overhead Expenditure of N1, 353 billion for 2012 to 2014. This means that the average amount expended annually on these five items during this period was N275 billion. The estimate for 2015 shows a continuation of this trend.” Overhead spending exceeded allocations to capital in all the years reviewed.

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