HOW TO LOOT FROM THE TOP:2012 BUDGET PROVISIONS

I cannot lay claim to being an accountant. I however have over fifteen years of corporate experience which has exposed me to budgeting and budget analysis as required of every modern–day manager. I have spent countless days in my career looking at several budgets in order to fillet the import for the operations and profitability of my organization(s). Budgeting is critical to the life of every organization. It signals the intention of the budget creator in terms of priorities, fiscal and structural discipline and overall direction of the corporate entity or nation. The budget of a nation tells you where the leader’s vision is focused, his perception of the challenges facing the  nation and the solutions he proffers  to the myriad of problems that face his constituency. Whoever presents a budget  must think it through as he is ultimately responsible for the content of the budget and the realistic achievement of the budget. So let it be with Goodluck Ebere Jonathan.

In the later part of 2011, I had looked at the 2012 budget without in depth analysis when it was first presented to the National Assembly. I saw the headlines and sectoral allocations as highlighted in the president’s speech. I did not look for the details in the allocations. I totally forgot that “the devil is in the details”.

The announcement of the deregulation of the downstream sector by the government was my wake-up call. The subsidy removal is a policy that jolted me just like all Nigerians. I wondered what the government wanted to achieve by stoking am already volatile polity. More importantly, I wanted to know  if the same government that was asking Nigerians to  make more sacrifices had  cut down its own excesses and imbibed the same spirit of sacrifice. Has that happened? Please read on.

I had wanted to compare the 2011 and 2012 budget but the sheer size of the challenge was prohibitive concerning the expediency of the current face-off between the impoverished people of Nigeria and the profligate government of Goodluck Ebere Jonathan.  This is not to say this current government stands alone in financial and economic recklessness. It is a battle trying to waddle through Nigeria’s accident scene of sleaze, corruption and ineptitude that has characterized budgeting and its implementation in Nigeria. There was no adrenalin spike in comparing the budget drawn up by Musa Yaradua to Goodluck’s budget. Jonathan apologists would quickly cry foul. It is only fair to judge Jonathan’s intentions by a budget he drew up and presented to the national assembly of Nigeria: the 2012 budget! It is impossible to look through the entire budget, it is instructive to see the major parts of the budget, starting from the office of the budget-creator. Let us therefore start  this journey by examining the budget provisions of the Office of The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria!

Total allocation for The Presidency is N43, 595, 512,439 Billion naira. This includes the budgetary allocation for the following agencies domiciled under the Presidency:

•  Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC): N10, 978, 037, 521 Billion.

• National Boundary Commission: N767,255 273 Million

•  Border Community Development Agency: N646,748,662 Million

• National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS): N1, 548,213,476 Billion

• Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE): N3,863,431,314 Billion

• National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA): N1,463, 138, 127 Billion

• Bureau of Public Procurement: N1,193, 545, 830 Billion

• Nigeria Investment Promotion Council (NIPC): N1,068, 142, 196 Billion

• Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI): N1,174, 212,080 Billion

• OSSAP MDG: N200,000 Billion

•  National Atomic Agency Commission: N2,348, 354, 790 Billion

• State House :N18,344, 524, 169 Billion

Let us proceed to itemize some shocking entries that are part of the budgetary allocation for the State House. I am going to start with the Office of the Vice President. Please read on.

LOCAL AND INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL

•  Local Travel and Transport (Training and Others): N723,783,408 Million

• International Travel and Transport (Training and Others):N951,028,384 Million

Total budgetary allocation for the Vice President’s travels is N1,674,811,792 Billion.

UTILITIES

•   Electricity Charges: N85, 209, 564 Million
• Water Rates: N42,941,329 Million
•  Telephone Charges: N56,483,025 Million
•  Leased Lines: N80, 487,953 Million

Total allocation for the Vice President’s utilities is N263,663, 567 Million.

MATERIALS AND SUPPLIES

• Office stationery and Computer Consumables: N343,299,190 Million

• Books: N12, 273,286 Million
• Newspapers: N43, 081,323 Million
• Magazines and Periodicals: N8,703,937 Million
• Printing of Non-security Materials: N121,248,260 Million
• Drugs and Medical Supplies: N314,323,463 Million
• Teaching Aids and Instructional Materials: N10,741,419
• Foodstuff and Catering Materials Supply:N476,966, 327 Million

Total allocation for Materials and Supplies in the Vice President’s office is N1,332,637,365 Billion

OTHER ISOLATED ITEMS

• Maintenance of Office Furniture: N53,387,659 Million

• Maintenance of Office Building and Residential Quarters: N1,736,208,393 Billion

•  Maintenance of Office and IT Equipment: N137,827,777 Million
•  Maintenance of Plants and Generators: N15,215,500 Million
• Other Maintenance Services: N113,682,232 Million
• International Training: N183,208,461
• Financial Consulting: N82,500, 152 Million.
• Fuel and Lubricants: N168,722,871 Million (Remember electricity bills)

• Refreshment and Meals: N293,695,515 Million (Remember Foodstuff earlier on)

SUNDRY CAPITAL BUDGET PROVISIONS FOR THE OFFICE OF THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA

• Office Furniture and Fittings: N135,053,350 Million
• Purchase of Computers: N265,111,472 Million 
• Purchase of Photocopying Machines: N23,566,100 Million
• Purchase of Scanners: N150,783,304 Million
• Purchase of Canteen and Kitchen Equipment: N45, 427,848 Million

• Purchase of Residential Furniture: N295,322,579 Million (Remember Furniture for office and maintenance earlier on?)

• Purchase of Health and Medical Equipment: N93,776,918 Million

•  Purchase of Library Books and Equipment: N44,166,229 Million (Books again?)

•  Provision of Office Buildings: N3,353,561, 982 Billion
• Provision of Residential Buildings: N300, 341,085 Million
• Provision of Electricity: N204,878,658 Million (Remember, Fuel and Lubricants and Electricity earlier, right?)

• Provision of Water Facilities:N15,361,852 Million
• Construction of Hospital and Health Centre : N268,444,076 Million

• Provision of Agricultural Facilities: N29,261,612 Million
• Provision of Infrastructure: N324,827,187 Million
• Provision of Recreational Facilities: N141,358,532 Million

And yet more of these capital projects………

• Rehabilitation and Repairs of the Residential Building: N694,893,729 Million (Which building.. the new or the existing?)

• Rehabilitation of Hospitals and Health Centres: N122,921,332 Million

• Rehabilitation and Repair of Roads: N21,511,233
• Rehabilitation and Repair of Office Buildings: Look out for this figure : N 419,960,802 Million! 
• What a very ominous and instructive figure. I could not help but repeat it: N419, 960,802 Million ! Please note the first three digits!

If you read this far, you must be wondering why this overbloated, unrealistic allocations were submitted right under the nose of Goodluck Ebere Jonathan. Why did he submit this to the National Assembly?

The answer is simple: Goodluck Ebere Jonathan is used to  watching when others loot. What did he do when his former boss Diepriye Alamesiegha was robbing Bayelsa blind? Alams has resumed in Abuja as de facto presidential adviser, right? He is doing the same thing to this few Nigerians who have been robbing us blind through the subsidyy. Instead of tackling  them, he wants to  further impoversh ordinary Nigerians. Why do we have such funny allocations in the office of the Vice President?

The answer is profound: people design budgets to loot, from the top. Looting starts from budgeting and it starts from the top. Everyone knows how Jonathan has planned to spend close to a billion to feast in 2012.   I will examine his budgetary allocations tomorrow but his Vice President’s proposed allocations is indicative  and tells us that Jonathan does not have the moral fecundity to ask Nigerians to make more sacrifice when the state house is feasting. Like Nero, they want to feast while Nigeria burns.

Do you know of better use of the monies allocated to the Vice President’s office? I see a lot of monies destined for misappropriation and outright stealing, while people die of hunger, disease, bad roads and empty pharmacies in dodgy hospitals.

Why should you remove the subsidy without addressing these leakages in the system.  We need to fix our conduit pipes; it leaks from the top!

When Jonathan does that, then he earns the moral temerity to ask us to tighten our belts.