Rethinking the yearly budget circus

Early in this month of November, President Muhammadu Buhari was in the National Assembly to present the proposals for the 2018 Budget. As usual, he went with a crowd, some looking like masquerades (Ojuju Calabar!). After the usual speech, more like an edited version of last year’s, he bowed to the legislators, turned round and bowed again in unison with his accompaniment. He was gleefully cheered! Thereafter, the media was awash with photos of the grand event and then comments began to flow from all sides.
Last week, in usual and similar manner, Sen. Udo Udoma, Minister of National Planning and his team addressed an elaborate Press conference where he gave further details of the budget. Again this was carried in the media, with all kinds of comments and analysis, some informed and many uninformed. That is the way it has been at least in the last 18 years since we resumed the 4th Republic. Some years we were told it was perspective budget, at other times we were told it was zero-based budget, with interesting sobriquets- Budget of new beginning, budget of change, budget of hope and budget of consolidation etc. After all the song and dance of budget presentations by the executive, the show moves to the National Assembly. Both houses go through an indeterminate period called budget hearing, when they invite Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government and try to show their power. In the days of Obasanjo, ministers and departmental heads would raise funds with which to ‘persuade’ legislators to approve their proposals or some times to increase the amounts allocated to them. I am made to believe that such practices may have stopped after what happened to the then minister of Education, who was sacked by Obasanjo for indulging in this absolutely corrupt practice.
Usually, the executive submits the budget proposals late in the year (slightly better this year) and thereafter both houses of the National Assembly begin series of battles for either turf or supremacy with the executive. Arguments as to the exchange rate to be assumed for the budget or the projected average price of oil in the international market could delay passing of the appropriation bill for months. At other times, when both houses eventually harmonize their differences, the President would refuse to sign the bill, because the budget has been ‘padded’, which is to say that the National Assembly has added items in the budget, different from what was submitted. After weeks of delay, the President would be ‘blackmailed’ to sign the bill, often determined not to fund those ‘extraneous’ items injected by the ‘interfering’ National Assembly. Up till date, the jury is still out as to the legality of the ‘padding’ usually done by the Legislators. By the time all these forward and backward movements are completed, we would be close to the middle of the New Year.
So in most years, actual implementation of the budget starts at midyear and by December, we are told that all unutilized funds had to be returned to the National treasury, while we start another circus show, preparing another year’s budget. For all these efforts what do we have?
In most years only about 50% of the budgeted amount is released as MDAs complain of lack of cash backing. We have several uncompleted projects and many end up being abandoned. A road project that is designed to be completed in 4years takes 12 years to complete as paltry sums are released yearly and in between, the portions of the road done earlier on go bad before the final portions are done, making it difficult for citizens to enjoy a full stretch of good road and often making it look as if Government was not doing much. The East-West Road is a classical example!
Sometimes even when cash is available, the contrived long and tedious procurement process delays mobilization and execution and as the year runs out and large sums remain unutilized, then some smart civil servants begin to ‘cook up’ phony projects leading to inefficient and often corrupt utilization of budgeted funds. This cycle has gone on for many years and with so much national income from oil & gas spent and much wasted and still our infrastructure remains poor. In the last 18 years, Nigeria has spent so much on electricity for example and we only have 6000MW to show for all the effort. In education, healthcare and other sectors, this yearly budget conundrum leaves us with little to show. Nigerians need to get better outcomes from the humongous amounts budgeted each year.
My question then is: has the time not come for us to change this circus show that is producing unsatisfactory results? I am of the firm view that we cannot continue to do the same thing every year and expect different results. Even with all the fanfare on the treasury single account (TSA), and all the large sums of money being advertised as recovered from alleged treasury looters, we are still borrowing large sums of money from local and international sources to fund our deficit. Nigerians are finding it difficult to rationalize this. I therefore posit that the time has come for a major rethink of our budgeting and public sector spending.
Firstly, we should begin to do a multi-year budget, may be a 3-year or 4-year budget cycle. One year’s budget roles into another seamlessly and without fanfare. Thus the executive just submits budget proposals once in 3 or 4 years. The National Assembly debates and approves the budget and then the executive proceeds with implementation. As assumptions change like exchange rates or price of commodities, the budget will be automatically adjusted. This will give enough time for the procurement processes, and allow sufficient time for implementation and remove this negative pressure to either use-up or hide money that otherwise would have been returned to the treasury even when on-going projects are starved of funds, perhaps because interim payment certificates have not been processed. Second, this annual dramatic trip to the National Assembly carrying boxes of paper (hopefully there is nothing else!) must stop. I do not see this happening in many other civilized countries. What would happen if the budget proposals are submitted administratively or on-line to the National Assembly without the annual fanfare which consumes time and money in the most inefficient manner, raising hopes and expectations that are perennially dashed and disappointed.
Thirdly, this change will reduce the work load on the legislators who currently spend almost half of the year on the annual budget. It will allow them pay more attention to other critical legislative work, including oversight. Additionally this arrangement may make it easier for the adoption of part-time legislative order as is being proposed by some as a way of reducing the current unsustainably high cost of running the tiers of government, releasing more funds for critical capital expenditure.

 
Mazi Sam I. Ohuabunwa, OFR

sam@starteamconsult.com