How National Assembly cripples Nigeria economically

Written by Tim Elombah

 Published: 22 December 2016

Nigerians are raising alarm over the mind-boggling budget of the National Assembly as contained in the 2017 budget.

According to 2016 budget, N115 billion was spent on the 360-member House of Reps and 109 senators (totalling 469 Lawmakers) and the legislative institution civil servants.

The National Assembly has never made their budget breakdown open and transparent to the public since 1999. 

Worse yet, Nigerians have never been opportuned to know what the N115 billion was spent on.

Consequently, progressive Nigerians conscious of the national economic crisis expected that the National Assembly budget to be slashed from the whooping N120 billion allocated.

Alas! The National assembly ironically rejected the demand that their salaries be slashed but rather increased it!

Interestingly, the Federal Government is seeking for loan locally or internationally to fund 2017 budget deficit.

President Muhammadu Buhari had announced, during the presentation of the 2017 budget, that the country will borrow as much as 46 per cent to finance the budget.

Buhari disclosed that the 46% deficit will be borrowed from external sources, meanwhile, N1.254 trillion will be borrowed from the domestic market

He said that the deficit of N2.36 trillion for 2017, which is about 2.18 per cent of GDP, will be financed mainly by borrowing.

According to him, government’s intention is to source N1.067 trillion or about 46% of the borrowing from external sources while N1.254 trillion will be borrowed from the domestic market.

Consequentially, it means that Nigeria will borrow and waste the loans on over-bloated recurrent cost of sustaining and maintaining the lavish and frivolous lifestyles of political class.

President Buhari, meanwhile, has implored Nigerian masses to endure austerity measures and hardship as 2017 predictably will be economically tough.

In another bizarre turn of events, the federal government announced that it will use over N250 billion of recovered looted funds to finance the 2017 Budget.

However, the said “recovered loots” does not yet exist anywhere as they are still to be recovered.

The National Budget Office [NBO], on Monday, said the said monies were to be recovered from corrupt government officials.

NBO Director General of the office, Mr Ben Akabueze, said that only N72 billion of the money had already been recovered.

“We are projecting N258.6 billion looted funds to be part of the revenue to finance 2017 budget.

“Also to be included in budget financing is 320 million dollars, which is N97.6 billion recovered Abacha loots expected from the Swiss government.

“The balance of N90 billion will be from other expected recovery loots which are now at advanced stages,’’ he said.

It will be recalled that the Federal Government earlier said it will fund the 2017 budget with recovered loot and renewed oil licences, even as it targets N10 trillion revenue generation in the coming year.

It emphasised that the 2017 budget would also be financed through royalties and promissory notes.

As an analyst aptly captured it, “as the government is recovering the loots from the looters, they only hand them over to less than 500 people in the National Assembly to cater for their lifestyles while Majority of Nigerians remain in poverty!”

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Buhari: Recalcitrance in place of Governance?

Objective observers may suggest this is a government that crested into office on high hopes and on a reputation for competence. Some may speculate it was voted in on the promise for a new and transformed Nigeria. Others may indicate it was enthroned because we desired the incarceration of the twin evils of corruption and insecurity. In recent times the situation has become grim and as the days merge into another emerging are a significant number who now harbour a tendency to gloat. 

This based on claims they issued warning upon warning about the sheer cluelessness that Buhari represented in years past in his responses to issues about the economy. However, we cannot ignore the fact that it was with fervour so evangelical that many of us supported General Buhari’s in the last of his few bids to become President. In the face of so much hopelessness, in the midst of the confounding scrounge of corruption and the unremitting and unending war against Boko Haram something had to happen. We relegated any past misgivings into far-flung recesses of our memory. 

We elevated the reminiscences of time past when he ruled with Idiagbon in tow. We ignored any suspicions about his vaunted inadequacies in preference to that of the bumbling and incompetent President Jonathan. It is not surprising that many now rise up, drenched in self-vindication and righteousness and suggest ‘I told you so’. However, there is a narrative, which must not be lost to revision. At the 2015 election we were presented with the two choices, not the very best at that but to many it was clear Buhari was a better of the options. 

Many observers will suggest the President started well with his inaugural address indicating loud and clear, he belongs to no special interest but to the whole nation. Then slowly the signs began to unravel, he took over the machinery of government and incapacitation assumed a new height. For six months he was unable to form a cabinet. Earlier on he appeared to bungle the elections into the leadership of the National Assembly. He then proceeded to introduced 80s styles exchange controls to the management of the economy sitting well within a globalized environment. 

He chose a debutante, a rookie as Minister of Finance for an economy groaning from years of excessive corruption. He placed several misfitting persons into positions, which they could not master as ministers. By his actions he turned and transformed the slow and anemic growth he inherited from Jonathan into a recession on the verge of a depression. Then there was his hard fisted response lacking any innovative ideas to Niger Delta situation which only worsened the situation. 

In all these, his greatest achievements apart from his fight against corruption, has been his recalcitrance, his stubbornness and his refusal to yield to the ideas and visions of the 2000s. It is now apparent that his first venture into government was anchored by Idiagbon and that he offered very little in way of innovation. When he could have constructed a government of all talents, abandoning party hacks and investing in technocrats he became devilled by them. 

A President who laid claim to belonging to none is now in the full embrace of a cabal, making it impossible for him to see that failure lurks all around the levers he controls. Even in the military sphere, video clips of soldiers dying of thirst and wailing for the commander-in-chief to come to their rescue at the war front serves to reinforce the incompetence that the government has become. 

But is all hope lost? I believe not, the New Year affords an opportunity for renewal, to replace the deadwood and deconstruct the Aso Rock cabal around him. 2017 presents a new vista, one in which he is transformed into a competent manager of men and derogating his responsibilities to the talent that flourishes all around our country Nigeria. 2017 presents an avenue to abandon any attempts at exchange controls and allow the naira to find its true level and to attract much needed foreign investments. 

To those who despair, who are wilting under the weight of a struggling economy, I say our time may yet come in 2017 and beyond but only if Mr. President wakes up.