MDAs put N744bn administrative items under capital projects – BudgIT

Mi n i s t r i e s , Departments and Agencies (MDAs) have masked N744.48bn worth of administrative items as capital projects into 2018 budget.

A statement signed by the Communications Lead of BudgIT, Abiola Afolabi, revealed that the administrative items constitute about 42 per cent of capital projects in the 2018 budget which have “no direct impact on Nigerians.”

The statement indicated that MDAs smuggled those several opaque administrative items as capital projects just to shore up the percentage of capital component in the 2018 budget.

“Recent analysis by BudgIT shows that approximately N744.48bn or 42.9 per cent of the N2.65 trillion capital allocations will go into administrative items which include the procurement of cars, retrofitting of government offices, trainings, consultancies, purchase of furniture and computers and so on,” the statement stated.

BudgIT expressed concern that the N2.65 trillion marked for capital expenditure will be largely borrowed (as highlighted in the proposed 2018 budget), it is disheartening to discover that most line items therein show a great disconnect from the developmental goals of government, as stated in its Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP).

The statement indicated that most of the administrative capital items as shown in the research analysis will benefit less than 1 per cent of its populace - politicians and civil servants.

“In a pre-election year, we would have expected that capital projects will be solely devoted to projects with direct developmental impact on the larger population. We have seen several items included in the capital budget that should ordinarily have been excluded given the tight fiscal condition and meagre economic growth,” the statement stated.

KWIRS targets N38bn for 2018