The Federal Government plans to spend N17.12 trillion in 2022. This sum is N735.85 billion more than the initially proposed sum of N16.39 trillion sent for approval to the National Assembly.
The Presidency raised alarm that the N735.85 billion increase in the Federal Government’s 2022 budget is partly due to alterations and insertion of new projects.
Without a doubt, some of the inserted projects are inconsistent with the Federal Government’s component of the 2021-2025 National Development Plan.
A quick look at some of the alleged alterations made to the budget proposal by the National Assembly reveals the reduction of budget sums for 10,733 projects and the insertion of 6,576 new projects, among others.
A further look shows that some of the 6,576 projects inserted by the National Assembly which the Executive arm is concerned about include an additional N10 billion for general “NASS Liabilities”, N5 billion for “NASS Library”, N300 million for e-Library and N139 million for “NASS Dashboard” under capital supplementation.
Recall that BudgIT observed 316 duplicated projects inserted into the 2021 Federal Government Budget approved by the National Assembly .
ICPC verified 257 duplications while the Budget Office confirmed the existence of only 185 duplicated projects worth N20.13 billion and stopped funds release to the affected projects.
Nigeria might well be on course for other cases of budget padding and loopholes for corruption with the newly approved budget.
Speaking of revenue, National Assembly increased Federal Government’s revenue by N610 million, from N10.13 billion to N10.74 billion, without justification.
Recall that the Federal Government has never raised up to N5 trillion revenue/year since 2016.
If revenue targets are missed again in 2022 after awarding contracts, Nigeria will either take more debt or abandon more projects.
As it stands, the approved 2022 budget includes a N6.29 trillion borrowing plan, including (N5.14 trillion Debt Financing, plus N1.15 trillion Multilateral/ Bilateral Project Loans).
This debt could soar if Nigeria misses its new N10.74 trillion revenue target.
The Presidency and National Assembly clearly need to resolve this as it is a crisis waiting to happen.
See key figures of Federal Government’s N17.12 trillion budget for 2022 courtesy of BudgIT:
Watch out for the full analysis next week.
