Re: Budget as tool of underdevelopment
Simon Kolawole is one of Nigeria’s finest senior journalists. I admire him a lot that I hardly miss reading his Sunday article – “Simon Kolawole Live “. I however differ with him on some issues raised in his latest article “Budget as a Tool of Underdevelopment” published in Thisday Newspaper on Sunday 24th June, 2018, […]
Simon Kolawole is one of Nigeria’s finest senior journalists. I admire him a lot that I hardly miss reading his Sunday article – “Simon Kolawole Live “. I however differ with him on some issues raised in his latest article “Budget as a Tool of Underdevelopment” published in Thisday Newspaper on Sunday 24th June, 2018, an analysis of President Muhammadu Buhari’s protest that the 2018 budget was severely distorted by the lawmakers with the reduction in allocations to priority projects and addition of over 6,000 new projects.
Without being unfair to him, in some parts of the article SK didn’t shy away from the fact that what the NASS has done with the budget is out of place nor unconstitutional, he posited thus “It is therefore logical and legal for the lawmakers to make inputs into the budget in the national interest.”
But he had an axe to grind with the NASS, which he is at liberty to do. He however took it off the couch by painting a scenario that may coerce his readers into assuming that the National Assembly has been the pest hindering the nation’s development, as if the executive has ever demonstrated any political will towards such assumed development. And SK questioned if the NASS has ever done anything in the national interest. How wrong can he be?
But when a lawmaker implements a constituency project or facilitates a project to his constituency, in whose interest would such project be? Apparently he and his immediate family might not be direct beneficiaries. As is the case of other members, since becoming a member of the Senate and as a Senate President, the Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki, for instance, has facilitated construction and reconstruction of abandoned federal roads in his Senatorial district than the federal government itself had thought of implementing. We may need to mention these two recent federal roads – Afon/Aboto/Oyo state boundary road and Michael Imodu/Afon Junction in Ilorin.
Already captured in the 2018 budget, as facilitated by the Senate President, is N250 million for the rehabilitation of township roads in Omu-Aran, Kwara state, in whose interest would such project be when implemented? This is one of the insertions the President was talking about, but he and his handlers would want the world to believe the funds for the projects were inserted to be channeled into pockets of lawmakers. SK got it wrong there. SK wants us to believe such projects are not in national interest?
Year in, year out we hear lawmakers who are closer to the people at the grassroots than the FG, lament over the failure of the budget to capture sensitive infrastructure in their various constituencies. Of what benefit is a lawmaker to his people, if he cannot offer responsible representation by advocating and attracting developmental projects to his constituency? These budgets are compiled and presented by the executive, this is where we may want to ask, who conducted the NEEDs assessment in the various constituencies and largely neglected them in infrastructural projects?
If truly budget is a tool of underdevelopment then the executive has more questions to answer, we may also need to ask if MDAs are unquestionable that Heads of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) fail to step forward to defend their budgets and also give ‘progress reports’ on what their offices have done with their capital votes?
What the 2018 budget has shown to us is that the failure of the Federal Government to provide sustainable developments for the people has forced the lawmakers to thinker on way to provide palliative measures in form of constituency projects for their people at the grassroots.
The lawmakers may definitely have their shortcomings and excesses which cannot be taken away from any human, but records have shown that the present NASS has surpassed past records in legislative achievements. The present national assembly is definitely not the pest responsible for the nation’s underdevelopment as SK would want us to believe in his “Budget as a Tool of Underdevelopment” piece.
Femi Adeniyi, Abuja, [email protected]