- Decries huge gap between recurrent, capital expenditure
- Urges economic team to release more funds for capital projects
- We can’t go back to old ways of spending money – Edun
- Disquiet over FG’s plan to spend N55bn on presidential fleet maintenance in 2025
The National Assembly has expressed disappointment in President Bola Tinubu’s government’s poor implementation of the 2024 national budget.
The federal parliament also expressed serious concerns over the huge discrepancies in the size of the recurrent expenditure relative to the capital expenditure.
It described as unacceptable, the low level of fund releases for capital projects for ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) in last year’s fiscal document still being implemented.
The Chairmen of the Senate and House of Representatives Committees on Appropriation, Solomon Adeola and Abubakar Birchi, made the observations at a joint sitting of the panels on Wednesday.
The panels held a special session with the Presidential Economic Team to consider the 2025 Appropriation Bill.
Both Adeola and Birchi agreed that the economic team should do something urgent to release more funds for capital projects.
They noted that doing so remained a major way for the people to feel the impact of government away from recurrent expenditure which affects only a negligible part of the population.
A statement by the Media Adviser to the Senate Committee Chairman, Kayode Odunaro, explained that the position of the National Assembly followed the report of the economic team led by the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun.
The report, according to the statement, revealed that overall so far, the 2024 budget performance was 43%.
The recurrent expenditure, it stated, achieved 100%, while the capital component of the budget only managed to achieve 25% performance.
Adeola, the statement explained, said he remained an advocate of drastically reducing the ratio of recurrent expenditure to capital in the budget from the present level of about 80% for recurrent and 20% for capital to at least 60% to 40%.
He stressed that the capital projects in the budget and their implementation is a major spur for economic growth and direct impact on the people.
Adeola said, “Capital releases to MDAs are the major drivers of economic activities within the nation.
“The non-release of funds for capital projects is a major issue in the performance of 2024 budget so far and it is desirable that funds are released to prevent abandoned projects and ensure the success of the Renewed Hope Agenda of the president.”
Adeola added that it would not be good news for MDAs to come for their 2025 budget defence session with a record of non-performance of their core mandates as contained in the capital budget.
He added that within the period of the 2024 budget still running, effort should be made by the Finance Ministry to release funds for capital projects.
Concurring with his counterpart in the Senate, Birchi called for more releases for capital projects of MDAs for such projects as schools, roads, dams, hospitals and other social infrastructure.
He said items such as debt repayment, which he argued, can be restructured in the interim.
Birchi said, “Most of the items of recurrent expenditure which takes a huge part of our budget and is implemented 100% will only directly affect about 10% of our population.
“The capital projects of the MDAs on the other hand, will directly affect the majority of over 200 million Nigerians in areas of social infrastructure provisions like hospitals, schools, roads, energy and similar.”
The Minister of Finance, Edun, confirmed that they have outstanding capital releases awaiting funding.
He regretted however that the country cannot go back to the old ways of spending money that is not there to avoid backlash as it happened in France and Germany of recent, adding that there are warrants awaiting payment for capital projects.
Also throwing light on the issue, the Minister of Budget and Planning, Abubakar Bagudu, defended the huge recurrent expenditure in the nation’s budget.
According to Bagudu, “It is a function of our level of development and some of the societal challenges we are facing at this moment.”
He added that some of the recurrence goes into the campaign of the military against insecurity which is yielding results to spur agricultural production and economic activities.
The Director General of the Budget Office, Tanimu Yakubu, also attributed the huge recurrent expenditure to past legacies inherited by President Bola Tinubu.
He cited issues of unpaid pensions and gratuities which the administration had successfully addressed.
He assured Nigerians that in the future, there may be the need for legislation by the National Assembly to limit the size of recurrent expenditure in the budget.
The meeting, which had in attendance the Minister of State for Finance, Doris Uzoka-Anite and the permanent secretaries of Ministries of Finance and Budget and National Planning, also deliberated on the issues of waivers and tax holidays which seem to reduce revenues for the government.
Disquiet over FG’s plan to spend N55bn on presidential fleet maintenance in 2025
However, the People’s Democratic Party and the Labour Party have kicked against the N55bn allocated in the 2025 budget for the maintenance of the presidential fleet.
This was contained in the 2025 Appropriation Bill sent to the National Assembly for approval.
If approved by the lawmakers, over N55.5bn will be spent on total overhauling of three aircraft engines in the presidential fleet, including fuelling, fumigation, air navigation, cleaning, and other maintenance of the presidential fleet.
The entire aviation ministry’s 2025 budget stands at N105, 953,496,365,
The budget proposal showed that the Ministry of Aviation and Aerospace Development has N71,123,368,069; the Nigerian Meteorological Agency gets N9,819,554,829, while N7,975,364,319 goes to the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology, Zaria.
Others are the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau, with N10, 035,209,148, and the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, which was allocated N7, 000,000,000.
Meanwhile, at least N19.43bn was spent on the maintenance and operations of the Presidential Air Fleet from July 2023 to September 2024.
Checks on GovSpend, a civic tech platform that tracks and analyses the Federal Government’s spending, showed that the payouts amounted to N13.55bn in 2024, representing 66 per cent of the allocations for the fleet in the fiscal year.
The yet-to-be-passed budget showed that N8,646,336,653bn was earmarked for the repair of air navigational equipment, while N5,514,000,000 was set aside for an engine overhaul of one of the aircraft in the presidential fleet with the registration number 5N-FGW.
The document further stated that two other engines will be overhauled with the sum of N3, 132,336.65.
The government also planned to spend N8,646,336,653 on air navigational equipment, with N1,550,000,000 proposed for aircraft fuel cost in 2025 and another N1,255,700,000 for aircraft maintenance in the presidential fleet, among others.
Besides, the sum of N149, 000,000 was appropriated for security operations (overhead) and an additional N7, 500,000 for cleaning and fumigation services for the presidential fleet.
The sum of N311, 145,300 was set aside for insurance premiums for aircraft.
It was gathered that this huge sum may be handled by foreign insurance companies such as the United States and the United Kingdom, since local insurance companies don’t have the capacity to insure aircraft, particularly airbuses.
Meanwhile, local insurance companies only occasionally serve as “middlemen” between the presidency and their foreign counterparts.
The South West chairman of the PDP, Kamorudeen Ajisafe, asked if the presidency was planning on procuring another aircraft.
Also venting his anger on the development, factional National Publicity Secretary of the Labour Party, Abayomi Arabambi, described the development as an inhuman and satanic act, adding that spending such an amount of money on the presidential fleet was a misplaced priority.
He reasoned that with millions of Nigerians struggling to make ends meet, it’s an appalling and “wholesome insult to the Nigerian masses that the government would choose to spend such a large sum on luxury aircraft.
He said, “The Presidential Air Fleet already has some aircraft, including a recently purchased Airbus A330, which cost over $100m.
“The government’s spending habit is a clear indication of its lack of commitment to reducing poverty and inequality.
The executive chairman of the Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership, Debo Adeniran noted, “What we are getting from this administration is opposite to our expectations… an administration that has fallen in love with profligacy.
“It’s time the government rethinks its priorities and starts putting the needs of its citizens first. The proposed expenditure on presidential jets is a national shame, and it’s time for Nigerians to demand better from their leaders. As you noted, it’s surprising that the same people who are complaining about the government’s wasteful spending will likely vote for the same politicians in the next election. It’s a vicious cycle that needs to be broken.”
An engineer, Olakunle Aina, said he was disappointed to hear that such figures are voted for travel, stating that the funds are huge for fancy sake.
“I am not an aeronautical engineer, but I know that the money wouldn’t have been that huge if our leaders were ready to manage, only if they were in tune with the level of hardship in the land, but no. They are not suffering; what to eat is not their problem, and that is why the next thing for them is affluence. For me, spending such huge money on the presidential fleet is the height of insensitivity.
“It can be cheaper while the balance can be better channeled; our leaders must think, and the time for that is now.”
