Excellent Oziboro.
First, let us understand the term, cost of governance. Cost of governance is the amount of money incurred in running administrative structures. it can also be seen as the money budgeted for both capital and recurrent expenditure of a country, these expenditure is broadly divided into two (2) namely, recurrent and capital expenditures. Recurrent expenditure is the expenses that happens repeatedly on daily, weekly or even monthly basis. This includes for example, payment of salaries and wages, administrative overhead, maintenance of fixed assets such as motor vehicles, plants etc, payment of electricity and telephone bills, insurance premiums, water, rates and rent etc. Capital expenditure on other hand refers to the capital projects and this includes constructions of houses, roads, railways, schools, hospitals, human capital development, purchases of official vehicles and company plants, construction of boreholes and electrification projects etc.
There is a constitutional provision required to regulate the cost of governance in Nigeria, the Nigerian government is under constitutional obligations to prepare and implement a budget, which is known as the statement of income and expenditure and indication of state prioritised expenditure for the year. Hence, the budget is the second most important national policy and programme instrument after constitution, which can be used to either deepen or alleviate poverty. Hence, budgetary allocations and actual expenditure constitute the basis for measuring the cost of governance in a democratic society. This is because, the budget deals with how common interest is served through the mobilization and allocation of public resources to common, It reflects the government’s vision of economic and social development and the policy and programme choices made in the translation of long-term development plan into annual financial target. Hence, when appropriately formulated and effectively implemented, budget can helps in equitable income and wealth distribution and economic stabilization. But the provisions has many limitations and that has created more opportunities for the corrupt leaders to loots their way out.
There is no doubting the fact that, the cost of running government in Nigeria is too high and this has hindered the Nation’s development both human and infrastructural. It is also one of the reasons why corruption has eaten deep into the fabrics of our society. This is showed in the high level of poverty, collapse of the health care system, education has become as unattainable as the sky, poor politico-economic infrastructure, pollution of values and culture as shown in massive corruption and indecency, high level of indiscipline, moral decadence, the resurgence of dangerous dimension of ethnicity, insecurity of lives and property as well as political violence of the highest order. All these have become features of Nigerian state as a result of lack of meaningful development.
Since May 29, 1999, political activities across the country have assumed different dimension in Nigeria and this is why politics has virtually become the most lucrative business in the polity. It is therefore, not surprising that in some parts of Nigeria politics has become a do-or-die affair. It is no longer unusual to see aspirants and candidates for political offices being assassinated over tussle for political positions; in many cases properties were destroyed due to clashes between two opposing camps. This defines the level of desperation of Nigerian politicians to get to public office and earn stupendous wealth.
One of the most annoying things in the budget preparations, presentation and implementation in Nigeria, is the role of actors (politicians) who are constitutionally empowered to actualise the intended benefits in the budget to the common people. As it was in the National Assembly during its deliberations of 2000 or 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2016 budgets of the federal government they increased the total estimates, far in excess of what was presented by the president. The reason behind such excessive increase was not to enhance the efficiency in the capital development nor the recurrent administrative effectiveness, but to enrich themselves at the detriment of millions of ordinary Nigerians.
The outcry over high cost of governance in Nigeria was the case of Bauchi state and Delta State in 2015 and 2019 respectively, when the then Governor Mallam Isa Yuguda and Governor Ifeanyi Okowa appointed more than 1,000 political aides to assist them in running the affairs of the State. These political aides were in addition to members of the state Executive Council, members of various boards and statutory corporations and governing councils of institutions of higher learning. They where not alone in this decision in appointing large number of aides purportedly to run state affairs.
Corruption is a by-product of underdevelopment. In Nigeria, funds that are allocated for the development of the country after the installation of democratic governance since 1999 have been mismanaged by political office holders. For instance, the Minister of Finance bemoaned the absence of physical development in most states of the federation despite the huge federal allocation to these states. Corruption kills nation's capacity to provide the basic necessity of life for the populace. Corruption leads to the use of resources to finance elephant projects at the expense of infrastructural development such as schools, hospitals, roads, water supply and electricity supply. For the past 16 years, budgetary allocations for infrastructure development have not yielded positive result to a large extent. For instance, billions of dollars were allocated for the maintenance of the three refineries yet, the refineries are not working to full capacity. The health and the power sectors are in state of coma due to bad governance and its unnecessary cost influenced by corruption. Furthermore, majority of the federal roads are dead traps because funds that are allocated for the maintenance of these roads are mismanaged.
Nigeria is richly blessed with human and natural resources particularly oil and gas as well as 34 solid mineral resources such as gold, coal and sulphur and our land is fertile for agriculture. Nigeria is the second largest economy in Africa; the six fastest growing economy in Africa with high economic growth rate, the largest oil producer in Africa and the seventh largest in the world in 2011. With a population of over 200 million population Nigeria is by far the most populous nation in Africa and global population respectively.
In Nigeria, costs associated with the running of government have increased dramatically over the years and this has reduced the proportion of public revenue available to support and implement the primary functions of government. Now, It is important to know that for a nation like Nigeria to prosper, it must hinges on good governance. Good governance helps to sustain the social contract that binds every member of the state.
High cost of governance (represented by both recurrent and capital administrative expenditure) has a negative impact on the development of Nigeria. An increase in cost of governance implies that there is decrease in government expenditure on public projects in vital sectors of the economy. This is because resources are scarce. An increase in expenditure on administration reduces expenditure on development projects, which adversely affect growth and development.
Secondly, the increase in cost of governance indicates that there is high level of corruption and inefficiency, which make available funds barely sufficient to finance projects in agricultural and manufacturing sectors. The above considerations are the challenges of general insecurity facing Nigeria today; ranges from act of lawlessness, kidnapping, insurgencies and oil thefts.
Finally, government should as a matter of sincerity be transparent in the formulation and implementation of budget to get higher percentage of execution, and the procurement process should be followed to be able to track government spending. It is high time government at all levels should set up a monitoring team with effective and sincere discerning minded people that will help to alert the relevant authorities in responding promptly. There is the need to reduce recurrent expenditure to a sustainable level through reducing waste, inefficiency, corruption and duplication of contracts in government then making capital expenditure more effective.
There is need for government to merge, restructure and even repeal their enabling laws to ensure that nonessential agencies ceased to exist to cut down unnecessary expenditure. I want to commend President Muhammadu Buhari for approving the implementation of the Steve Oransaye Committee report on the rationalisation and restructuring of government agencies in Nigeria.
There should also need to continue and strengthen the implementation of the monetization of benefits by ensuring that the practice of purchasing fleet of cars for public officers is discouraged, the continued implementation of the monetization programme will save resources and cut down expenditure. The number of commissioners in the States Executive Councils as well as special advisers and personal assistants to Nigerian Governors should be streamline to optimum. Similarly, none of the appointed officials should have more than one official vehicle. Regulatory agencies and authorities in Nigeria should ensure that all salaries and allowances of civil servants, public servants including political office holders conform to due process, constitutional provisions and existing financial rules and regulations. This will no doubt reduce instability within the entire system.
0 Comments