Stop borrowing, try fiscal responsibility

The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, continuously harps on government needing to borrow rather than tighten its belt and live within its means. The minister appears totally unconcerned about this administration’s inability to properly account for money. It beggars belief that without being able to render proper accounts of money borrowed in the past they have no qualms about continuing to borrow and incur debts which future generations will have to repay.

Despite the lack of financial probity in government expenditure, the minister believes that everything is okay and that the problem is revenue, not debts. Her quite unjustifiable and absurd solution to an inability to manage funds correctly is to increase taxation in various forms even though the majority of citizens live below the international poverty line. It is tragic that bearing in mind the reality of the nation’s wretchedness, profligacy, corruption and unaccountability in government continue unrestrained.

One would have expected that an administration touting anti-corruption would end the in-built squandermania in government, but lamentably, the presidency is still immersed in imperial grandeur junketing overseas at the drop of a hat. Governors grant themselves unconstitutional security votes for which no account is rendered while junketing to social functions on hired private jets rather than commercial airlines, and legislators satisfy themselves with drawing stupendous unjustifiable allowances. This is what the nation borrows for!

The ongoing mess of unaccountability and failure render proper accounts or abide by extant financial procedures is annually highlighted in the Auditor General of the Federation (AuGF) report on “Non-compliance/internal control weakness issues in Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDA’s)”. The official indifference to the revelations is a disconcerting endorsement of corruption. Nobody ever takes responsibility, not even the chief accounting officers of MDAs.

The expectation is that those responsible should be held to account but this never happens, which only serves to pile on more irresponsible governance. It is a mockery of those who are victims of corruption and government incompetence and short-circuits the ability of the general public to insist on honour and virtue in public service. Indeed the manner in which former and current corrupt political office holders live lives of luxury is a good indication that corruption does indeed pay. It’s high time the Minister of Finance told citizens the plain truth, that this administration has no idea as to how to get the economy out of the mess they have placed it in. Alas, the National Assembly (NASS) consistently fails to play their constitutional role of calling the executive to order, because they are the same kettle of fish. The AuGF indicted NASS management for embarking on N9.42bn “unexplained expenditure”, N1.59bn car loans, N2.25bn “running costs” to house members without requisite documents, and non-remittance of billions Value Added Tax (VAT) into federal government treasury. All this in addition to being unable to do the job they are paid to do! In 2021 the Budget Office confirmed 185 duplicated projects in the budget. Recently BudgIT a civic-tech organisation discovered 460 duplicated projects valued at N378bn in the 2022 budget proving that under this administration nothing has changed or improved in terms of probity. It’s a free for all in which innocent long-suffering citizens are asked to pay the cost of official inefficiency, incompetence and grand larceny.

The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) decried the misappropriation of funds by members of NASS who are responsible for carrying out oversight functions and protecting the public interest. In addition to paying for renovation of unspecified residential quarters against financial regulations, members of the House of Representatives refused to pay back “loans” of N258mn. The NASS Service Commission was also indicted for failure to retire cash advances granted illegally to staff and deducting hundreds of millions from senators salary as refund of housing loan, but not remitting back to the treasury.

The AuGF never tires of pointing out Paragraph 417 of the Financial Regulations which states that: “Expenditure shall strictly be classified in accordance with the estimates and votes must be applied only to the purpose for which the money is provided..”  His report states that weaknesses in internal control systems continue to allow for misappropriation of public funds and difficulty in funding the budget.  Furthermore, practically every MDA’s financial statements couldn’t be verified or reconciled with the assets register, inventories of raw materials and consumables could not be verified and there was no verifiable evidence to justify many expenses including unretired personal advances, payments without relevant supporting documents in addition to refusal to remit internally generated revenue.

While financial mismanagement continues unabated, evidence has come to light that the Solid Minerals Fund set up by President Obasanjo to reduce the nation’s over-reliance on petrol has been disgracefully and unjustifiably used for other purposes. Coupled with this, the Excess Crude Account has been reduced by over 50 per cent despite crude oil prices averaging higher than the benchmark for the year. Rather than continuing to borrow money which they cannot account for and consider increasing petroleum prices to cover up the malfeasance, this government would do well for all Nigerians if they just concentrate on the real job on hand of living within their means and administering public funds efficiently with probity. Only after this happens will Nigerians be convinced of the need to borrow endlessly.