Also considered outrageous by many is the humongous allocation to the office of the OASGF for the procurement of vehicles. For instance, the office was allocated the sum of N400 million for procurement of motor vehicles in the 2016 budget proposal. The office got N107.58 m in 2015 for the same purpose. While the Ministry of Information and Culture also proposed to spend N140.9 million for procurement of computers for National Troupe of Nigeria,, the total allocation for acquisition of computers by the Ministry of Science and Technology is N91,394,900.
One of the proposals that has been a source of embarrassment in the budget is government plan to spend N3.8 billion as capital allocation to the State House Clinic, a stand-alone medical facility used by the President, the Vice President and the staff of presidential villa. In addition, another N3.21 billion was allocated for health equipment and supplies for the State House Medical Centre while in another line item, tagged “State House HQTRS” another N203 million was budget for drugs and medical supplies. Also baffling is the allocation of N322 million to link a cable to the drivers’ restroom in the presidential villa while another N213.8 was included for linking the one of the guest houses in the presidential villa to the generator house.
Also, about N1 billion was allocated for installation of electrical fittings and switching boards in the State House in the budget. In contrast, the government proposed to spend the sum of just over N2 billion as capital allocation for construction of hospitals across the country in the budget. Under the State House HQTRS votes, N278 million is earmarked for the Maintenance of Office Buildings/Residential quarters despite the fact that the sum of N421.27 and N907.11 million were budgeted for the same purpose in 2015 and 2014 respectively.
Also, President Buhari continued the culture of fascination for cars started by his predecessors with allocation of N599.01 million voted for procurement of motor vehicles, another N278 million to purchase buses and another N340 million for the purchase of cars, BMW and Jeeps. There is yet another N120 million allocation to buy 16-seater Toyota Hiace buses. The Nigerian Prison Service which budgeted N200 for feeding of a prisoner per day has allocated the sum of N500 million for capacity building, a clear testimony that the Buhari’s administration promise of ensuring that that resources are aligned with government’s priorities and allocated efficiently was observed in the breach in the preparation of the 2016 budget.
Yet, many of such instances abound in the appropriation plan. BudgIT, a civil society organization devoted to making the Nigerian budget more understandable and accessible identified instances of N111.32 billion of suspicious wasteful spending in the proposed spending plan. This is made up of aggregations of allocations for travels, purchase of computers, software, budget preparations, office stationery/computer consumables, purchase of vehicles, monitoring and evaluations, rehabilitations/repair of office buildings, office rent and purchase of furniture and fittings in the budget. The organization further noted that if the funds are reallocated, it can help Nigeria build 27, 830 units of social housing, 550 MW power plant, provides eight million school desks/chairs for schools and even go a long way in the construction of N140 billion second Niger bridge which has been on government radar for over a decade.
The mismatch between the avowed commitment of the Buhari administration to reduce waste in all aspects of national life has dampened the initial enthusiasm of Nigerians about the N6.08 trillion spending plan, with allocation of N1.8 trillion, or about 30 per cent for capital expenditure, is an improvement on the N557 billion capital vote of 2015.
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