Leadership (Abuja)
Baba Yusuf
6 October 2008
The Action Congress (AC) has described as failure the Federal Government's claim to have realised N400 billion from unspent capital budget of ministries and other government agencies. The party said that the government should not showcase such as a sign of prudence or successful anti-corruption war.
"We are shocked that President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua could celebrate this in his independence day broadcast as a sign of his administration's effort to sanitise the financial and budgetary process or an indication of the FG's zero-tolerance for corruption.
"This is because claiming to have saved such a huge amount of money at a time that our infrastructural facilities are begging for repairs, our hospitals lack drugs and majority of our citizens are going to bed hungry, is a simplistic way of looking at governance," the party said in a statement issued in Abuja yesterday by its national publicity secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.
AC said the government was being unrealistic to expect that with the budgets sometimes passed six months into the year, ministries and agencies could successfully execute their capital projects before the year runs out.
It said in some cases, the capital projects were still ongoing and contractors yet to be paid when the FG ordered the return of the unspent capital budgets, throwing contractors into turmoil.
"Instead of putting in place the mechanism to ensure an early passage of the budget and a successful monitoring and implementation of the various capital projects of the ministries, parastatals and agencies, the government is rushing to beat its chest for what amounts to failure of governance, the inability of the ministries and others to carry out their capital projects!
"Accountability and prudence are very important, but we can't pursue that at the expense of the well-being of our people. Afterall, governance is all about the people," the party said.
AC likened the so-called realisation of 400 billion naira from unspent capital budget to the FG's chest-beating over the 63 billion dollars external reserves, wondering the essence such huge reserves at a time of unprecedented suffering in the land; lack of basic social infrastructures; deteriorating educational standard; massive unemployment and insecurity, just to mention a few.
"The FG's action amounts to a declaration of war against the people, instead of against financial and budgetary mess or corruption.
It does not call for self-glorification but a serious reflection on the impact or otherwise of the annual budgets on the lives of our citizens," the party added.
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