The Verdict According to Olusegun Adeniyi. Email, olusegun.adeniyi@thisdaylive.com

Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who had been summoned to appear before the Senate, honoured the invitation last week Thursday. But, as usual, she was more prepared than those who invited her, so at the end of the day she left the red chambers seemingly unruffled. She also used the opportunity to dispel the innuendo about the water project in her village which was initiated in 2006 by the lawmaker representing her Federal constituency. “The project in question, a dam, was not brought to Ogwashi Uku by me but by a former colleague of the honorable members who was representing the community in the House. But it’s not right to distort facts just to make a point,” she said.

Last Thursday, I used the current disagreement over the implementation of the 2012 Appropriation Act to start a series on how both the lawmakers and heads of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) distort budgets to the detriment of the economy. At the bottom of the current brouhaha is the “envelope system” which means in essence that we simply determine spending categories, i.e. Presidency, Education, Defense, Agriculture, Health etc. But the way it works is to put an amount into each envelope (for every ministry and agency) and throw it at them to do as they please. For instance, if N100 million is put in the Defense envelope, the ministry would simply allocate this amount to its different sub-heads. Nobody assumes responsibility for rationalizing the expenditure within a predetermined pattern, but everybody is made happy with money to spend as they wish. The idea is that overall spending must be aligned ostensibly to balance the books rather than necessarily being geared towards an output level that would increase the overall capacity utilization.

This budgeting method which suits both the executive and the legislature not only promotes waste but also undermines rigour and strategic thinking. Everybody is made to spend something without accepting responsibility for whether it would meaningfully impact the economy in the financial year. Worse still, even those who ordinarily should spend nothing are given something while projects requiring much higher levels of capital outlay are underfunded. As a result, there are now too many uncompleted and abandoned projects all over the nation; even after billions of Naira had been committed.

Having taken time in the last one week to study the budgeting process in several countries, my conclusion is that what we do here is not budgeting. We simply share and spend money. In more organised societies, it takes three years to complete the budget for one fiscal year (FY)- a year to formulate, another to legislate, and yet another to execute. Of course there would always be some details to sort out in the course of implementation but the essence of budgeting is forward planning. Yet in our own case, as of now, the 2013 Appropriation Bill is not ready and may not be when the National Assembly resumes in September. And then, , we don’t expect the lawmakers to approve it until March or April next year! And that itself may begin a process of negotiation and renegotiation that would take days, and possibly weeks, before it is assented by the president.

It must be clear to the two arms of government that working backwards in every financial year, through contrived capital projects and wasteful recurrent expenditures, is unsustainable. But even more critical is the abandonment of the Five-Year Economic Plans (which gave Nigeria most of its critical infrastructure through the 1st to the 4th national development plans). Having destroyed the Ministry of Economic Planning which ordinarily should have responsibility for the preparation and monitoring of capital budget, we replaced it with the so-called National Planning Commission whose most important mandate does not go beyond distributing scholarships and aids by foreign governments and multi-lateral agencies!

Going forward, I believe there are a few things that must give. One, the high recurrent-to-capital expenditure ratio in the annual budgets is unacceptable. Two, we need to curtail the huge outlays for the so-called constituency and MDG projects that are too thinly spread to make any impact. Three, long-term planning should be restored to save us from whimsical insertions of items and upward review of amounts for capital allocations in the annual budgets. Four, enough legal and constitutional safeguards should be provided against individuals and institutions giving themselves the power to misuse vast amount of financial resources outside the budgets. Cases in point are the recent fuel subsidy scam involving MDAs and statutory agencies whose officials and some dubious marketers practically shared un-appropriated money to the tune of over a trillion Naira; abuse of Natural Resources and National Stabilization Funds as well as unilateral payment of $1.1 billion by the Federal Ministry of Finance to an oil company (some would say an individual) for a purpose not captured by the budget.

Finally, to come back to where we started, the appropriation bill, once passed, is a law, and violating that law without recourse to virement is a crime; and a good ground for initiating impeachment proceedings. But nobody is taking our lawmakers serious because most Nigerians are aware that their current anger is not about their power over the purse but rather about some ill-motivated “constituency projects”. Unfortunately, as we have seen over the years, the National Assembly even lacks the requisite capacity to do any serious work on the budget. Yet they have been talking about a Legislative Budget Office like the (United States) Congressional Budget Office for ever. If they are serious, this is the time to begin to put such structure in place.

A Lesson in Leadership

Even though a non-Catholic, I have somehow become one of the disciples of Rev. Father George Ehusani who combines his clerical job with social entrepreneurship, especially through a training outfit which organises high-quality training programmes for different categories of future leaders. Since 2008, the outfit has hosted over 400 young people at the annual Summer Leadership Programmes. Two sessions are slated for this quarter alone. The first, a four-day training exercise for newly appointed school prefects from a cross section of secondary schools, took place last week in Abuja while the Open Camp for 100 young people drawn from FCT and two other states, will hold from August 21st to 25th. All the programmes are fully residential and free of charge for participants. They are designed to teach the young people leadership skills and social values.

In bringing together senior prefects of secondary schools, Father George said he has discovered over the years that they wield substantial influence which can be deployed as a positive force hence the need to inculcate in them the right leadership values. On Monday and Wednesday last week, I attended some of the sessions with 80 senior prefects drawn from eight schools in Kogi State and the FCT and I was glad I did. In his usual stylish way of drawing the students out, Father George said, in the course of one of the sessions: “I am glad I am dealing with secondary school students who have not been exposed to cultism or is there cultism in secondary schools?”.There was a roaring “Yes” from the prefects. We have serious trouble in our school system.

At the four-day camping, the prefects engaged in sports, drama presentations, music, creative writing and excursions while some respected people in the society were brought in to interact with them and share their life experiences. The idea of influencing the young influencers which is what the exercise is all about is a very positive gesture from Father George Ehusani and I just hope he can get support from public-spirited people for some of the programmes designed towards uplifting our society by instilling in young people the right values.

So Who Killed Oyerinde?

In the last two decades, the Nigeria Police and whatever other authority has a hand in its leadership have become notorious for parading some people before television cameras after every high-profile murder. In the course of such drama, some interesting tales get told to journalists by the officer doing the parade and they would be corroborated by these “suspects” who may be compelled to confess their crimes. In some instances, names of some prominent people would be thrown into the mix. But at the end, nobody is ever successfully tried for any murder, if the case ever gets to court.

While this has been going on for a long time, a new twist was added last week when Nigerians were told that Comrade Olaitan Oyerinde, the late Principal Secretary to Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole, was killed on the same date and at the same time by two separate killer squads with two different objectives. In Benin, the Edo State Police Command has in its custody some men who allegedly assassinated Comrade Olaitan at the instance of Rev. David Ugolor of the African Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ) who is also in detention. Yet in Abuja last Wednesday, the State Security Service (SSS) paraded another gang of suspects who publicly confessed that they killed Oyerinde in a violent robbery attack. Because I have known David for about a decade now and I consider him a friend, I will refrain from commenting on his travails so as not to jeopardise whatever credibility remains of this investigation into an unfortunate murder of a promising young Nigerian. But the careless manner of handling cases of homicide, terrorism, rape, kidnapping and other violent crimes in our country today calls for serious worry.

In view of the threat to national security posed by the apparent lack of co-ordination on the part of all the security agencies in the country and the growing ineptitude in their operations, especially with regards to criminal investigations, I believe President Goodluck Jonathan should wade in to read some riot acts to the security chiefs. But in the immediate, Nigerians would like to know who (between the “Benin assassins” in Police custody and the “Abuja armed robbers” with the SSS) actually pulled the trigger that killed Comrade Oyerinde.

Yusuf Alli @ 50

The Managing Editor, Northern Operations, of The Nation newspaper, Mr Yusuf Alli, clocked 50 yesterday. Not surprisingly, he was in the newsroom, just performing his reportorial duties on which he has excelled beyond measure. Mr Alli, a former Editor of PUNCH, is one man I have come to know over the years as a thoroughbred professional and a dependable friend and brother. I wish him the very best at his golden age.