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PAGE 10– SUNDAY VANGUARD, OCTOBER 13, 2019
2020: Another budget t
will be difficult to imple
By Dele Sobowale
“The most obstinate illusions are ultimately broken by facts” — Trevor Roper, VANGUARD
BOOK OF QUOTATIONS, VBQ, p 100.
“Budget of Continuity was based on a benchmark oil price of $60 per barrel, oil production of
2.3mbpd. Government projected a deficit of N1.91t. The revenue performance is only 58 per cent of
the 2019 budget’s target due to the underperformance of both oil and non-oil revenue sources.
Specifically, oil revenues were below target by 49 per cent as at June 2019.”
President Buhari, Budget 2020 presentation to the NASS, October 8, 2019.
PREAMBLE
My first annual budget review for
VANGUARD was done in 1989. That was
30 years ago and during the Babangida
administration. If there is one thing I find
remarkable, it is the penchant by
Nigerian governments – military or
civilian – to treat the annual budget, not
as tool for economic and social
development, but primarily as
propaganda piece for their own political
agenda. Invariably, they have around
them individuals who, if they were not in
government, would be among the first to
spot the fallacies underlying the budgets
they publicly endorse. Reading the
comments made by leaders of the Peoples
Democratic Party, PDP, about Buhari’s
budget, one wonders if they would say the
same thing if it was Atiku who released it.
That shows how uniformly unpatriotic
our politicians are!!
How often have we heard the statement
“the budget is good, we only have to
worry about implementation” as if a
sound budget can ever be divorced from
the plans to execute it. Highly respected
pillars of Nigerian society have uttered
that drivel so many times even with
demonstrably unsound budgets one
wonders if they wish Nigeria well. To be
quite candid, in all those 30 years, I have
never read a single budget which was
good waiting only for equally great
execution to move Nigeria forward.
Nigerians have been subjected to varying
degrees of failed budgets leading us
nowhere; or, worse still, leading us to
ruin.
Incidentally, budgets under military
regimes – Gowon, Murtala, Obasanjo,
Babangida, Abacha and Abubakar – were
better prepared and more faithfully
executed than what we have experienced
under President Shehu Shagari and since
1999. All our men in uniform, without
exception, were certainly running corrupt
governments. But, they implemented their
budgets better and were actually less
corrupt than the civilians we have elected.
Invariably, they started with a series of
Budget Thrusts for the year in question,
thereby providing keen observers criteria
for monitoring implementation. By
contrast, Buhari’s budgets have been
nothing more than tropes of words
without clearly stated objectives and so no
handle for assessment of performance. It
cannot be otherwise. Just take a look at
the people preparing the budgets and you
must shed tears for Nigeria.
The 2016 to 2020 budgets under
President Buhari have been the worst
formulated and the worst executed. In
fact, this is the first government lasting
more than four years which had racked
up such a dismal record of managing
budgets. Buhari’s statements, which were
rendered in “cut-and-paste fashion”
above, regarding the performance of the
2019 budget, represent a summary of the
four annual budgets he had presented to
the National Assembly, NASS, and which
had actually been passed with only slight
amendments but which had got us
nowhere.
They have all failed because the
President does not realise that a budget is
a promise to the people which he must
keep. Revenue shortfall of 49 per cent
amounts to betrayal of hope and trust.
STARTING ON THE
WRONG FOOT;
STAYING ON THE
WRONG TRACK
“Morning shows the day” according to
an old adage.
The disaster of the 2020 Budget
actually had its origins in 2015. The first
three appointments every modern Head
of Government makes in today’s global
village are: the Ministers for Defence,
Finance and External Affairs. Those are
the people other countries appraise most
critically. And, the appointments are
made very quickly after elections are over.
Bearing in mind that “a week is a long
time in politics” (Harold Wilson, British
Prime Minister 1970s), Buhari waiting
for five months to make those key
appointments had already sent a signal to
the global community; and not a good
one. To then turn around and hand the
economy to people totally unknown in
global financial institutions for the five
months sent another signal; a worse one.