The House of Representatives said on Sunday
that the Federal Government’s yearly expenditure
was “over N20tn,” contrary to the N4.6tn (2014)
or N4.3tn (2015) disclosed to Nigerians as the
country’s annual public budget.
Its Public Accounts Committee, which made the
disclosure in Abuja, noted that, an ongoing
examination of the finances of government and
its 601 agencies showed that the N4.3tn given
as the total spending budget for this year was a
“far cry” from the reality.
The Chairman of the committee, Mr. Adeola
Solomon-Olamilekan, who spoke on the issue,
explained that, unknown to Nigerians, the
N4.3tn, for example, did not include the
expenditure of many “statutory and extra-
ministerial departments” of government.
He added that his committee found out that
these other agencies not captured in the regular
budget, generated and spent their money as it
pleased them without seeking the approval of
the National Assembly.
The lawmaker put the budget of these other
bodies at over N16tn.
Solomon-Olamilekan explained further, “The
N4.9tn, N4.6tn or N4.3tn, as the case may be,
is the budget that the whole Nigerians are
listening to but in the true sense of it, the budget
of other statutory and extra-ministerial
departments put together is about N16tn.
“So, the total overall budget year in year out is
over N20tn, which the executive arm operates,
but nobody is asking questions as to the
implementation of all these budgets.
“Nobody is bringing information on the
implementation of all these budgets; and this is
one area Nigerians need to start asking
questions in order to move this country forward.”
Solomon-Olamilekan stated that though the
Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2007, made adequate
provisions on how these bodies should be held
accountable, the law was observed in breach.
He cited the “stifling” of the Office of the
Auditor-General of the Federation as one of the
ways to shield government agencies from
opening their books to scrutiny.
Solomon-Olamilekan said this was done by
starving the office of funds “over the years” to a
point where it no longer had the financial power
to effectively audit the accounts of the
implementation agencies of government and its
extra-ministerial departments.
For instance, he revealed how the government
cut the capital budget of the AGF’ office from
N1.9bn to a “meagre” N100m in 2015.
The lawmaker said his committee was at a loss
on how the AGF’s office would audit the
accounts of 601 agencies with N100m and the
country’s 144 foreign missions.
The PAC chairman added, “How can we imagine
that the capital budget of the office of AGF for
the year 2015 was reduced from N1.9bn to
N100?
“Can you also imagine an office of the AGF that
has 144 foreign missions to audit and as we
speak, between 1999 to date, that office has not
audited up to 30 of these foreign missions while
three quarter of these foreign missions are also
revenue generating agencies?
“So, there is nobody to audit the revenue
generated and the expenditure they incur.
“The office of the AGF has been short-changed
and the budget has been reduced to nothing. As
such, the government of the day is having a field
day to carry out whatever its wants to do
because they know they have an office that is
not functioning.”
The PAC has also been saddled with the
responsibility of retrieving the full report on the
audit investigation into the $20bn reportedly
‘missing’ from the accounts of the Nigerian
National Petroleum Corporation from the Minister
of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
The House had, in plenary on Wednesday last
week, given the minister seven days to submit
the full report to the lawmakers.
Source: www.punchng.com/news/fgs-annual-budget-is-n20tn-not-n4-3tn-reps/

Corrupt and inept government.

ok

Say the name of the MDAs that are responsible for the remaining 16 trillion naira or shut up