In what looks like a drama, President Muhammadu Buhari while signing into law the 2022 budget described the document as difficult to implement. A breakdown of the N16.39 trillions estimated budget showed that recurrent spending for the projected year is N6.83 trillion, representing 41.7 per cent of the total expenditure and 18.5 per cent higher than the 2021 budget.
Capital projects, on the other hand, got N5.35 trillion, representing N32.7 per cent of the total expenditure, inclusive of capital components of statutory transfers, government owned enterprise’s capital and project tied loans expenditure after their usual legislative scrutiny, Nigerian law makers increased the budget from the initial N16.39 trillion to N17.1 trillion.
Though he described the budget as one that cannot be implemented, President signed the budget but questioned the worrisome changes made by the lawmakers. Some of the worrisome changes are, increase in projected Federal Government Independent Revenue by N400 billion, the justification for which is yet to be provided to the executive. Reduction of the provision for sinking fund to retire maturing bonds by N22 billion, reduction of provision for the non-regular allowances of the Nigeria Police Force and the Nigeria Navy by N15 billion and N5 billion, respectively.
More projects have been added to the budget of some MDA’s with no consideration for the institutional capacity to execute the additional projects and or for incremental recurrent expenditure that may require.
It is surprising, therefore, that despite the National Assembly increasing projected revenue by N609.27 billion, the additional executive request of N186.53 billion for critical expenditure items could not be accommodated without increasing the deficit, while the sum of N550.59 billion from the projected incremental revenues was allocated at the discretion of the National Assembly and yet the president went ahead and signed a budget he personally described as one that can’t be implemented
President Buhari formally assented the 2022 budget on December 31, 2021, making it a working document Nigerians would now watch to see the implementation of an “unimplementable 2022 budget.”
Abubakar Usman Shehu,
Bauchi State.
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