BY Oluseyi Awojulugbe
BudgIT, a civic organisation, says the projects added to the 2018 budget by the national assembly are fragmented and do not fit into the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP).
In a statement released on Tuesday by Abiola Afolabi, BudgIT’s communications manager, the NGO said 6,529 new projects were inserted into the budget by the national assembly.
“Out of the 6,529 new projects entered into the budget, 90.6% or 5918 items have a unit value below N200 million. Also, the projects cannot be directly linked to the written, medium-term aspirations of the government as highlighted in the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan,” the statement read.
“An analysis of the inserted projects shows that N63.64 billion or approximately 11% of the new projects added by the National Assembly will be spent on various training and capacity building programmes in 2018.
“Given that the budget will be largely funded by borrowings (as highlighted in the 2018 fiscal plan), it is disheartening to discover that most of the identified line items therein show a significant disconnect from the developmental goals of government, as stated in its Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP).
“We are alarmed at the number of micro-projects added by the National Assembly that may not fall within the core scope of the federal government.
“We also noticed that the new projects inserted into the budget are fragmented, and budget line items are accompanied with vague descriptions that will prove difficult to monitor or track in physical and auditing terms.”
Commending the national assembly for the additional funding to the health sector, BudgIT said the amount added (N55.15 billion) is below the N70 billion one per cent consolidated revenue fund.
“We also believe that there will be a more in-depth interrogation of the extent of the powers of the national assembly and how such powers are exercised with great responsibility.”
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