2023 APPROPRIATION BILL: Is Our Arithmetics Wrong?

Reported By: Anitche Ndudim

Call it Budget estimate, Appropriation bill, or Fiscal bill presentation, it all mean the same. It is that thing commonly known as "Budget" presentation by the ordinary Nigerian. That annual ritual where Chief Executives, and in the case of the Nigerian nation, the President presents to the National Assembly at a joint session, the financial estimate of the government involving, proposed income and expenditure for the coming year.

So, on October 7, 2022, President Mohammadu Buhari performed the final and last budget of such ceremony by his administration as the Nigerian Chief Executive Officer, since his constitutionally allowed two term in office as President of Nigeria, is due to end on May 29, 2023.

The Federal Government's fiscal bill as tabled before the NASS, proposes an Expenditure Estimate of N20.51Trillion for the year 2023, the highest in Nigeria's contemporary economic history.

A breakdown of this expenditures are as follows:

1. Statutory Transfers - N744.11Billion

2. Non Debt Recurrent Cost - N8.27Trillion

3. Personnel Cost - N4.99Trillion

4. Pensions, Gratuities - N854.8Billion

5. Overhead - N1.1Trillion

6. Capital Expenditure - N5.35Trillion

7. Debt Service - N6.31Trillion

8. Sinking Fund - N247.73billion

Source: Vanguard News October 7, 2022.

A close look at the sum total of the expenditure estimates, seem not to be adding up. Elementary arithmetics show that when you sum up the expenditure items outlined above, what it amounts to is a total of N27.866Trillion. This sum (N27.866Triilion) appears at variance (excess of N7.31Trillion) with the proposed total budget expenditure sum of N20.51Trillion for the year 2023.

Infact, this sum of N27.866Trillion does not include the N2.42Trillion proposed to be spent by Government Owned Enterprises (GOE). When you add the proposed GOE expenditure, what you get is colossal, to be assumed, presumed or viewed as "error of margin".

Is our arithmetics actually wrong? A grave error like this is a calamity and an embarrassment to the nation amidst the present challenges of revenue and debts the country is faced with.

Now that the bill is undergoing legislative scrutiny, this error whether of the brain or of the mind must be brought to the attention of the National Assembly for appropriate actions and corrections. The dangers would be catastrophic to the entire fiscal and economic projections if this error is allowed to slip through technical and parliamentary processes, passed and allowed to receive the Presidential assent.

If for any reason this computation is not rectified, the implication will be that, the nation is left with nothing but a faulty and an unimplementable fiscal (budget) act.

This is indeed a matter of national interest and should be devoid of partisan politics in this crucial season of electioneering.

ANITCHE NDUDIM ROWLAND is the MD/CEO, RUGON CAPITAL LIMITED.

Views and opinions expressed in this article is entirely that of the author, and does not in any way represent the position of africafirstnews.com