Nigeria’s long history of wasteful spending has continued under President Muhammadu Buhari as new data shows the President and Vice President of Nigeria have budgeted the sum of N14.7 billion on Travel and Transportation, Food and Catering Services, Refreshments in the last four years.
In the face of poor performance and huge overheads, fixing Nigeria’s wasteful expenditure has remained the promise of every administration since 1999.
Abuja has however piled up debt rather than embrace global examples on how to run an efficient government, failing to curb an appetite for waste that has eaten the country’s national budget for decades.
For instance, although President Muhammadu Buhari campaigned on a platform of ending waste and restoring probity, efficiency, and transparency yet the latest data from the government’s proposed budget showed a sum of N3.871 billion has been allocated to the presidency for foodstuffs and catering services, traveling, and refreshments in 2023.
According to the budget document, President Buhari will spend the sum of N862 million on local Travel; N1.633 billion on International Travel; N301 million on foodstuff and catering materials and N30.6 million on refreshments and meals.
In the same vein, the Vice President will spend N846 million on Travels, consisting of N330 million for local travels and N516 million for International Travels.
Another sum of N156 million will be spent on foodstuff and catering materials, while N20.264 million will go to Refreshment and meals for the year.
In 2021, the President was earmarked to spend the sum of N775 million on local Travel and Transport and another N1.651 billion on International Travels. FoodStuff and Catering had a budget of N98 million while refreshment and Meals got N12.496 million.
These above expenses differ from the budget for the management of the Presidential fleets, which are used by the President and his Vice for Travelling.
For instance, Presidential Air Fleets have a budget of N12.425 billion for 2022, which is different from the expenditure allocated to the President and Vice President for Travels and transportation.
The money for these expenditures may have also been fully released given the budget implementation rates for Overhead expenditures by the country between 2019 and 2022.
These budgeted expenditures by the President and his Vice, on food, travels and refreshments, fall under the overhead expenditure budget category.
Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari, presented the 2023 budget to the National Assembly, in October.
In January, BudgIT, a civic organisation promoting accountability and transparency in public spending in Nigeria, reported that its preliminary analysis of the 21,108 capital projects in the 2022 approved budget revealed 460 duplicated projects amounting to N378.9 billion.
In the 2021 budget, BudgIT observed 316 duplicated projects inserted into the 2021 budget approved by the National Assembly, while the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission verified 257 duplications, and the Budget Office confirmed the existence of only 185 duplicated projects worth N20.13 billion.
“A cumulative total of N6.3 billion was allocated to supplying street lights in 73 communities across the 36 states, while N14.8 billion was allocated for the construction of 219 roads across 36 states; whereas the majority of the roads are the responsibilities of state and local governments and not the Federal Government,” the organisation said.
According to Gabriel Okeowo, BudgIT’s country director, the loopholes for fraud in the 2022 federal budget is a crime against the 86 million Nigerians living below the poverty line, an injustice to hardworking taxpayers and an open mockery of countries and lending institutions that intend to lend Nigeria N6.29 trillion in 2022.