2017 Budget Not Padded – Ben Akabueze

The Director-General, DG, Budget Office of the Federation, Ben Akabueze, has insisted that the 2017 budget presented to the National Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari was not padded.

Speaking at a confrence in Abuja, the DG stressed that the document Buhari presented was exactly what the Ministries, Departments, and Agencies, MDAs certified.

Akabueze said, “Padding is a term used to describe unauthorized or undisclosed insertions into the budget and I can say without equivocation that there is no padding in the 2017 budget proposal.

“The process of preparing the 2017 budget required MDAs to upload their budgets online by their accredited officers, who were issued access codes to ensure an audit trail of all entries.

“The Chief Executive/Chief Accounting Officers of all MDAs were required to certify their final budget inputs.

“The budget presented to the National Assembly by Mr. President was exactly what the MDAs certified,” he said.

The director-general assured that the Budget Office was committed to ensuring Nigerians are fully involved in the budget process, adding that the National Assembly was also committed to passing the budget in March.

While clarifying issues raised concerning the budget, the DG said, “The Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) is updating its price list, following a valid concern about difference in prices for the same items.

“The price list when updated would be structured into the budget preparation application to make it impossible for various agencies to use the different prices for the same items in the budget.

“Various commentaries had termed some expenditure as frivolous, suspicious or wasteful, but that no item should be regarded as such because for welfare packages set aside to cater for support for funerals of deceased staff and so on, it was impossible to accurately project them and so MDAs used their best judgement.

“The 2017 budget was prepared, using the Zero-Based Budget, ZBB, system which required that every project/programme must be justified each year for inclusion in the budget.

“This does not imply that projects captured in the previous year’s budget will not feature in the current proposal, especially if the project was not implemented due to funding challenges or is still an ongoing project.

“Someone simply aggregated the budgets of the Budget Office, the Ministry of Budget and National Planning and the provisions made by receptive MDAs for budget preparation and administration.

“They described the total of N5.41 billion as cost of preparing the budget; this is not correct and reflects a lack of appreciation of the full scope of responsibilities of the budget office and its parent Ministry of Budget and National Planning.

“The budget summarized key ingredients of the Nigeria Economic Recovery and growth Plan, NERGP 2017-2019 which built on the strategic implementation plan of the 2016 budget.”