The National Assembly, has passed the harmonised 2024 Appropriation Bill totalling N28.77tn. Before passing it, NASS increased the budget size by N1.2tn, from the N27.5tn the Executive proposed.
President Bola Tinubu had on Wednesday, November 29, 2023, presented a total of N27.5tn to a joint session of the National Assembly. The two chambers at the Committee of Supply considered the Appropriation Bill presented by the Chairman, Appropriation Committee of the Senate, Adeola Solomon, and his colleague in the House, Abubakar Bichi.
NASS' N10bn Car Parks And Recreation Centre
The National Assembly did not disappoint Nigerians at all. They expectedly took good care of themselves. They ensured that a truly grand car park is provided for in the Budget Estimates for 2024! They need to have a car park that befits their status as federal lawmakers even if the constituents that supposedly sent them to Abuja are dying of hunger and starvation.
National Assembly car parks and recreation centre will cost the tax payers N10billion, a sum that the country can ill-afford at this time. The federal lawmakers allocated N4billion for the National Assembly Recreation Centre; N4billion for the design, construction, furnishing and equipping of the National Assembly's Budget and Research Office; N3billion for procurement of books for the National Assembly Library; N3billion Senate car park; N3bn for the House of Representatives car park; N3bn for the upgrade of key infrastructure in the National Assembly; and N3bn for the design, construction, furnishing and equipping of the assembly's ultramodern printing press; N2.7bn for furnishing of committee meeting rooms and other offices within Senate building.
Sadly, it is not only the National Assembly that is the beneficiary of some highly ostentatious items in their budget, this is inspite of the dire state of the Nigerian citizen.
Nigerian Solid Minerals Company Limited
The budget by ministries and parastatals were also largely about taking care of those in power at the detriment of the people. A few such items readily come to mind when one takes a closer look at the budget. For instance, at a time, we are told that government has no business being in business the Federal Ministry of Solid Minerals Development has proposed a budget of N2.38billion for the establishment of a Nigerian Solid Minerals Company Limited at the ministry's headquarters. This is inspite of the fact that most businesses set up by Nigerian government have always failed and failed woefully too. It is not in doubt that it is difficult for any government to run a successful company in this country. The private sector should drive the diversification of the solid minerals sector. Therefore, the allocation of N2.38billion for purposes of setting up a government owned company is certainly not well thought out.
Also, in the budget of the Federal Ministry of Finance, there is an item in the budget described as "Investment in Digital and Creative Enterprises (DICE) Training of entrepreneurs in creativity and digital technology- ministry headquarters". This nebulous subhead is allocated a whopping sum of N45.50billion. Going down a bit on the Finance Budget, you see a similar item identified as "Investment in Digital and Creative Enterprises (DICE) Training of Entrepreneurs in Creativity and Digital Technology-Ministry headquarters", this has the budget sum of N18.38billion. What could be the differences between the two items?
The Budget of a country is a serious business, those who prepare it and those who scrutinize it for passage into law must act in the best interest of the people, not on the whims and needs of politicians. The 2024 budget did not prioritize the people. That was clearly expressed by the budgetary allocations to the health and education sectors by the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration.
2 Key Sectors Deserving Prioritization
In the 2024 budget N1.44trillion was allocated to the education sector. As huge as this may appear at a glance, this was less than the required UNESCO benchmark which recommended that 25 per cent of the national budget spent on education would do the education sector of developing countries a lot of good. Thirty-four years after the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, UNESCO, recommended that developing nations give up to 25 per cent of their annual budget to public education, Nigeria's allocation to the sector remains still less than 10 per cent.
Consequently, of the N55.3 trillion allocated to the education sector by the federal government between 2016-2021, only N3.5 trillion had been given the sector, and this represents less than ten per cent. In comparison, though Ghana and South Africa have not actually met up to the recommended 25 per cent by UNESCO, they have done far more than Nigeria, allocating a maximum 23 per cent and 16.7 per cent respectively. In 2016, of the total budget of N6.06 trn, the sum of N369.6 billion or 6.7% of the budget was allocated to public education in the country. In 2017, N550 bn or 7.38% was allocated to education out of N7.29 trn budget, while in 2018, N605.8 bn or 7.04 % was given to education out of N9.2 trn budget. In 2019, N620 bn or 7.05% was allocated to education out of the budget of N8.92 trn, while in 2020, N671.07 bn or 6.7% was given to education out of N10.33 trn budget. In 2021, N742.5 bn or 5.6% was allocated to education out of a budget of N13.6 trn.
On the other hand, according to reports by the World Bank, Ghana allocated 23.81% of its national budget for education in 2015, 22.09% in 2016, 20.1% in 2017 and 18.6% in 2018. For South Africa, it has kept increasing allocations to the education sector from R246 billion or 16.7 % in 2018, R310bn in 2019, R 387bn in 2020 and projected that it'll hit R416 bn by 2023/24.
Here we are in 2024, under the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Tinubu we are still allocating less than 10 per cent of our annual budget for education. Albert Einstein defined insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
If we can remove all the unnecessary allocations and channel them to education, we could be able to meet UNESCO target and thus use education to overcome the poverty ravaging the country. Again, the federal government has failed for the umpteenth time to meet the Abuja Declaration by African leaders in 2001 and the World Health Organisation (WHO) benchmark to allocate, at least, 15 per cent of yearly national budgets to health. In April 2001, the African Union (AU) countries met in Abuja and set a target of, at least, 15 per cent of their yearly budget to improve the health sector.
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In the 2024 budget the ministry of health and social welfare was allocated only N1.2trillion, which is far below the WHO recommendation and we expect the health sector not to get worse under the present economic climate. The good news is that we have the resources to meet both the UNESCO and WHO budgetary allocation requirements if only our leaders would reduce their greed and prioritize the health and education of Nigerians.
Budgets as Indicators of Government Intentions
When one reads through the budget document, the signal one gets is that the government says one thing but intends to do another. When you juxtapose the budget with the New Year Address of Mr President, there is a wide disparity. The Renewed Hope Agenda is supposedly anchored on the people, but the 2024 Budget as passed is full of barrels of pork that will benefit only the politicians and those in the corridors of power. Therefore, this is not the kind of budget Nigeria needs at this time. We need a budget that is truly citizen centred.
MAY NIGERIA REBOUND
