Apparently in response to the crisis surrounding the 2016 budget; different versions of which remain stuck before the National Assembly, President Buhari took a walk of shame the other day, firing the Director-General of the Budget Office, Yahaya Gusau and replaced him with Tijani Abdullahi. With a new budget czar, expectations were high that the urgency of Nigeria’s economic downturn would have at least compelled a new budget to be presented to lawmakers by now. Regrettably, almost two months into the New Year, the country still has no budget. This is yet another advertisement of institutional failure and a sad statement on the credibility and confidence building character of government; even as Mr. President has been on the road with his seemingly endless foreign travels. The President’s apathetic approach to the budget showcases lack of seriousness to governance issues and that is a pity because all the promises of change were made loudly but the process of achieving it is now being trivialized. No wonder it has been a poor run so far.
From the shoddy attitude of the President and the Budget Office’s embarrassing head-scratching proposals, everything was wrong about the 2016 budget. Initially, Buhari proposed a record 6.1 trillion naira budget, which most analysts deemed unrealistic, owing to the global fall in the price of oil, which accounts for over 70% of government revenue. Oil has been trading just above $32.00 from about $120 per barrel last year. Additional spending will be funded through tax revenue and the deficit of N3 trillion through borrowing. But the public outcry that followed Buhari’s presentation of the budget led to a tragic-comedy of errors, in which the President’s legislative affairs adviser, Sen. Ita Enang attempted a surreptitious backdoor padding of the budget. The attempt to doctor the original budget sparked off a needless controversy, forcing Buhari to withdraw it, but not before embarrassing the government and the entire country.
Civic groups were unanimous that the proposed budget had line items that made a mockery of Buhari’s anti-graft war. In some instances, the same purchase of vehicles, computers and furniture totaling billions of naira were replicated multiple times. Some of the most obnoxious provisions included the $4 million to update the website of one Ministry; N31 million as “rent” for presidential residences owned by the government; N3.9 billion allocation for the presidential clinic that far exceeded provisions for all 17 of the country’s teaching hospitals, amongst other profligacy. All of this is tacky and avoidable if the President identified with the yearnings of the people and adopted the budgeting process as his first responsibility tool for Nigeria. The standing view is that the President has been derelict in his duty to own, and be seen to own this all-important national document called the budget.
The take-off of the 2016 budget and its implementation ought to have begun on January 1, 2016. With the delay in passing the budget, the attendant multipliers and time lags portend unfavorable results all over the economic and social sectors. In a country where government has crowded out the private sector, and the public sector is the biggest business entity, the federal budget is the oxygen of national life. It, therefore, should embody the vision and bear the imprimatur of the person Nigerians elected as president of the federal republic. It is a sad comment on the President’s style and it illustrates another poor dimensioning of the stature of presidential presence and the amplification of the absence of good personal leadership example by Mr. President.
The situation is more perplexing because the outgoing Budget 2015 has not been reviewed to determine performance indices and failure rate. This unacceptable anomaly has become endemic, and clearly points to a democracy that is not working. Ordinarily, the budget is the arithmetic value and processes deriving from the President’s vision, to the collective wisdom of his cabinet and the entire apparatus of the government. The philosophy of the leadership, rigors, priorities of vision, are central to the federal budget and, therefore, is far more than just economic projections. Its significance is in signposting the running of government affairs for the next 12 months, measuring employment generation, job creation quotient and other critical items of a serious government. There is therefore the need for a functional budget office in the National Assembly to constantly test the President’s figures on budget preparation and implementation.
In point of fact though, the President literally owns the budget, and he should only encourage what would bring harmony to the entire country and make his government work cohesively. But by even taking a short vacation and travelling abroad, Buhari has belittled the process. He has failed to elevate to an appropriate pedestal what is supposed to be a document of vision for the nation; and one which affects the lives of citizens. Beyond that, the situation touches on the capacity of the majority change-promising APC party to do the needful without resort to brinkmanship at the expense of Nigerians and the economy.
The budget is a matter of great public interest to Nigerians. In effect, what the President has done, globe-trotting, while the country has no operational budget, is a mark of contempt for the Nigerian people. This is as un-presidential as it can get; and it raises fundamental questions that seriously undermine the authority of the President in discharging his official duties. The country does not deserve the crossroads to which it has been taken by the budget saga. Buhari should return home from his escapades and focus on the most important aspects of his job: give the country a budget. Failure to do so amounts to holding the country hostage. This is not the change promised by the APC; and clearly not the change Nigerians voted for.
