Executive Director of Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Mr. Auwal Ibrahim Musa (Rafsanjani), on Monday, kicked against the proposed N2.7 trillion supplementary budget approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC).
The CISLAC helmsman who spoke exclusively in response to Nigerian Tribune’s inquiry, specifically expressed displeasure over the proposed bogus amount of money required for the bridge maintenance, takeoff of the newly created Ministries as well as procurement for defence.
While expressing concern over the country’s inability to generate adequate funds to offset the incurred service debts, he opined that President Tinubu and his economic team should be prudent enough to block leakages, wastes and corruption, thereby reducing cost of governance.
He said: “I’m just reading a very devastating thing that this government is doing. We are really in big trouble, trouble in the hands of people who did not dare to know what is going on in Nigeria in terms of poverty, in terms of the collapse of our economy, in terms of waste, duplication and corruption.
“Therefore, since they don’t want to know and they are not feeling it, it is difficult for them to have policy, programmes that can work toward addressing these problems.
“So, I’m really worried and concerned that we are permanently resolving to duplication, waste and you could see outright insincere spending. What is the meaning of maintaining bridges for supplementary budget?
“I think the government did not have clear priorities in its spending. And this is going to continue to create challenges for the government.
“Remember even the traditional commercial banks and international financial institutions, very soon they will start borrowing money to Nigeria because we have not been responsible in terms of utilisation of the money we borrowed; even though the financial institutions do not care what you do with the money as long as you have to be compelled to pay whatever money you borrowed. But it is ultimately the citizens that will always continue to suffer.
“So, in my opinion, this supplementary budget that this government is asking for maintaining bridges, for defence and takeoff of the new ministries, I think should have thought through very well to know the implication of this before this government went ahead to create new ministries.
“I don’t think the creation of these ministries has any economic value when you can actually use the existing institutions to do the same thing.
“Now we are going to be wasting money for buying facilities are not and equipment and spending money on new appointees and what have you.
“I don’t think President Tinubu’s advisers and himself are up to date with realities of what we are facing as a nation.
“The fact that even our annual revenue cannot even pay service debt, we are in trouble, that’s enough for them to stop all these cosmestic and waste with money. You could actually do a lot to minimize waste, block leakages and ensure that there is prudent management of our resources.
“But it appears that the current government’s interest is not there in terms of financial discipline, in terms of prudent management of our resources, in terms of prioritisation of projects that have economic value. These are things that are necessary.
“We have spent a lot of money in terms of providing arms and ammunition in the defence generally. Some of it we are not even taking delivery of, why the wasting more money to get new equipment and facilities that you would not even get immediately, because some of these equipment take time to deliver. So, why can’t the Government focus on the money that Nigeria had already spent to get these facilities so that we do not waste that money.
“Why do you want to spend money just like that for this so-called defence procurement? I don’t think it is good and if this is what they are doing, it would continue to give Nigerians the impression that government of Tinubu is just out there to do whatever they likes without reflection, without thinking, without really having the technical or rather the competent economic management team that would guide how government should economically operate.
“There’s no way you can be taking money like that into the area that is not going to give you any economic benefit.
Even the human, there is no human benefit in it. It is just money that some contractors and some people in government are their foreign allies will just be making out of the miserable economic situation, out of the miserable financial difficulty Nigeria finds itself in. You don’t need to do a bogus budget,” he noted.
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