By Chimezie Godfrey
The Center for Social Justice (CSJ) has called on the Federal government to, as matter of urgency, review the 2020 appropriation bill and estimates.
The lead director of the Centre, Eze Onyekpere, said at a media briefing on Wednesday in Abuja, that the review is imperative in order for the Federal government to identify and duly correct frivolous, inappropriate, unclear and wasteful estimates in the 2020 federal appropriation bill.
According to him, the 2020 federal appropriation bill and estimates is replete with wasteful estimates and expenditure.
“Attendance of statutory and international bilateral/multilateral meetings (ongoing), which is estimated at ₦250,000,000 million, should be reduced by 50% percent.
“Travels should not be a priority.The number of persons representing the country can be pruned and it will result to a savings of 125,000 million.
“Youth and Women empowerment through environmental management for vulnerable group in society which is estimated at 10 million, is a meaningless jagon. The project has no location and it is hanging in the air. What exactly is the sum voted for? Save this vote.”
He stated that the recommended savings for the country is ₦150.07 billion, and that government should review and appropriately prune those frivolous and wasteful estimates and expenditures from the 2020 federal appropriation bill.
Onyekpere stressed that the 2020 budget figure which is ₦10.33 trillion is paltry sum that cannot take care of the enormous challenges facing the country at the federal level.
He warned that the continued failure to provide the details of Statutory Transfer and Service Wide Votes (SWV) and simply stating them as a lump is against the rules of fiscal responsibility.
He added that no agency in a constitutional democracy is authorized to spend public resources in a way that is unknown to the citizens who are the ultimate sovereigns.
He pointed out that some of the challenges and concerns discovered in the 2020 federal appropriation bill and estimates, include recurring deficit and dependence on sovereign debts to finance key infrastructures and budgetary provisions; the failure of the budget to provide details of releases in the previous years, among others.
The Centre urged the President and National Assembly to show sufficient political will to expeditiously reform the oil and gas sector through the Petroleum Industry Bills, adding that this can be done before the end of the first quarter of 2020.
“Clear and transparent rules encompassing best practices should be deployed for the oil assets ownership restructuring, signature bonuses and renewal of oil licences and this should be done expeditiously.
“Revenue projections should be based on empirical evidence, trends from recent years, take into considerations innovations from revenue collection agencies as well as change in social, environmental and economic circumstances.
“The deduction of monies due to the federation account but NNPC under the guise of under recovery is illegal and unconstitutional and should be stopped immediately.
“If the executive desires to continue the petroleum subsidy regime, they should do so through appropriation,” he stressed.
Onyekpere said that fuel subsidy is outdated and has no place in modern economic process.
He added that it is a subsidy on consumption supporting industries abroad and that any meaningful subsidy should target production done by the local office industries in the country.
“Fuel subsidy under any guise fuels fraud, criminality and mismanagement of public resources. The claim that Nigeria consumes 55-60million litres of petrol a day is false and cannot be supported by any empirical evidence,” he said.
He further stressed that future budgets should contain details of monies so far spent on ongoing capital projects so as to give citizens a good picture of what has been invested and what is required to complete same.
He urged the NASS to insist on the executive providing details of all statutory transfers and bulk sum in service wide votes and this should be made available to Nigerians through the website of the budget office of the federation, among other recommendations.
