In a recent revelation, the BudgIT Foundation, a prominent civic-tech organization dedicated to promoting transparency, accountability, and effective service delivery in Nigeria, has uncovered significant discrepancies in the proposed N27.5 trillion 2024 budget. According to BudgIT’s detailed review titled ‘2024 Budget: Issues Begging for Attention,’ budgets of crucial revenue-generating government entities are conspicuously absent from the proposed budget.
Entities notably missing in the 2024 proposed budget include the Nigerian Ports Authority, Nigeria Customs Service, Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NiMASA), National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS), and the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Plc (NSPM), raising concerns about the transparency of the budgetary process.
BudgIT had previously expressed reservations about the 2024 budget presented to the National Assembly by President Bola Tinubu, highlighting alarming issues and discrepancies. The organization called for a thorough review of the budget, emphasizing the absence of essential budget breakdowns from government-owned enterprises, ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs).
In its report, BudgIT pointed out that the proposed 2024 budget continued with certain “deleterious budget practices” from previous administrations, fostering corruption, underdevelopment, unemployment, and multidimensional poverty. The breakdown of the National Assembly budgets also revealed the absence of crucial information from GOEs and MDAs.
BudgIT stressed the importance of GOEs and MDAs submitting their budgets for public scrutiny, as the lack of transparency hinders government revenue expansion and effective expenditure utilization. The organization argued that public disclosure of fiscal information, including budgets, revenue, spending, implementation, and debt, fosters confidence in the system and encourages accountability.
Moreover, BudgIT disclosed that the breakdown of the proposed 2024 budget amounted to N24.08 trillion, indicating a significant difference of N3.42 trillion compared to the N27.5 trillion aggregate budget presented by President Tinubu. BudgIT suspects that this difference includes the aggregate budgets of Government-Owned Enterprises (GOEs) and calls for the disaggregation of their proposed revenue and expenditures.
Historically, the revenues and expenditures of several GOEs have been absent from formal budget presentations, despite previous promises by former President Muhammadu Buhari to include them. BudgIT emphasized the urgent need for more Government-Owned Enterprises’ budget implementation reports to ensure transparency and accountability in the budgetary process.
