Senate Urged to Probe N4bn Botched National Carrier, Scrap ‘Frivolous’ Estimates

The Senate has been urged to thoroughly scrutinise the 2020 Appropriation Bill and scrap out some "frivolous, inappropriate, unclear and wasteful estimates," which might have been included by various Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

A non-governmental organisation, Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), in partnership with Citizens Wealth Platforms through its Convener, Eze Onyekpere, while presenting analysed fiscal document to journalists in Abuja, faulted the 2020 budget presented by President Muhammadu Buhari to the National Assembly.

Few of the proposed budgets he specifically called on lawmakers to scrap include the ‘Reclamation of abandoned mines sites (Ongoing) at N318,173, 775 by Ministry of Mines and Steel Development; Planning and Development of Nuclear Power Plant Infrastructure (Ongoing) at N300,000,000 by the Ministry of Power, and Strategic Negotiation and Engagements at 130,000,000 among others’.

Onyekpere, who also urged the lawmakers to cut into two the N107,309,820 budgeted by the Ministry of Mines and Steel to maintain its website, insisted that the vote is too much for the maintenance of a website, describing it as a yearly ritual.

He noted that “all the expenditures that would not impact positively on the lives of the people were included,” recommending that many expenditures in the budget should either be slashed for being ‘too high’ or removed for ‘duplication’ in the expenditure of another agency of the government.

Specifically, the CSJ wondered why the Nigerian Government still voted over N4billion for what it described as a 'failed National Carrier'.

The Ministry of Aviation had earmarked N4, 694, 131,965 as working capital for the establishment of a National Carrier and N304,000,000 consultancy for the establishment of the National Carrier in the 2020 budget.

The federal government had suspended the planned commencement of operations of Nigeria Air in September after announcing in July that Nigeria Air would commence operation before the end of this year.

“I regret to announce that the Federal Executive Council (FEC) has taken the tough decision to suspend the national carrier project in the interim. All commitments due will be honoured. We thank the public for the support as always," the Minister of State for Aviation, Hadi Sirika had announced.

Onyekpere, therefore, urged the lawmakers, as they prepare to pass the budget on November 28 to completely scrap and save the money, considering the fact that the country is not buoyant to fund it.

According to him, "Save this sum. Nigeria liquidated its airways after it became extremely unprofitable and insolvent. Nothing has changed. If the private sector wants to float an airline, the treasury has no business providing funds for the working capital.

"There is nothing to show for the previously budgeted money for working capital, hiring of transactions advisor and consultancies.

“The executive budget is still inundated with projects described as meaningless jargons, words that have no fixed meaning, duplication of projects under different names; projects without locations and others that have nothing to do with the mandate of the MDAs which they are proposed for.

“When the Ministry of Agriculture has a project on the promotion and development of the rice or wheat value chain, what exactly is the deliverable?

“The use of loose words like empowerment, capacity building, skills acquisition and upgrading without a contextual description of what the expenditure will achieve is simply not the terminal to expend public resources.”

Onyekpere, while giving a breakdown of some of the expenses that made up the unclear expenditure, also expressed concerns in the State House.

For instance, the sum of N 526.23million which was allocated for the replacement of vehicle spare parts and tyres was bogus and should be reduced by 50 per cent to N263.11million.

He added that the N 4.06billion, which was also budgeted for annual routine maintenance of the Villa, should be reduced by 50 per cent to N2.03 billion.