By Modupe Gbadeyanka
A lawmaker from Kwara State, Mr Aliyu Ahman-Pategi, has lamented the poor implementation of the 2018 budget by the executive.
The political economist, who is representing Edu/Moro/Patigi constituency at the lower chamber of the National Assembly, said the level of implementation of the 2018 budget was less than five percent, which he described as very poor.
Mr Ahman-Pategi, while contributing to the debate on the 2019 budget estimate of N8.8 trillion on Wednesday, said the executive was just making the efforts of the parliament a waste of time if the implementation was poor.
“The percentage of implementation of the 2018 budget is less than 5 percent, which means it was a wasted financial year.
“It is natural for lawmakers not to be encouraged to debate the 2019 budget and other budgets because we have it at the back our minds that the implementation would be poor after going extra miles to go through the documents and pass them,” the lawmaker said on the floor of the green chamber.
He therefore, called on the executive to ensure the budgets are ready for transmission to the parliament before October of the preceding year to allow input of legislators to be concluded in time for speedy passage and implementation.
Mr Ahman-Pategi lamented the continuous borrowing of the present administration without channelling the funds to developmental projects, noting that this keeps making the percentage of debt services to rise.
He also called that the money proposed for the social intervention fund be used to pay owed contractors so that they can return to site and engage Nigerians in carrying out the jobs so that wealth can be spread.
Corroborating his colleague, a lawmaker of Kaduna State, Mr Simon Arabo, said the level of implementation of the 2018 was inexcusably poor especially when aligned with the revenue that was generated.
He stated that the implementation was obviously deliberate to create artificial scarcity since the government bragged about increased revenue generation from the organs of government.
He stated that it was alarming that Nigerians do not even know how much oil is generated and sold daily, there is so much oil theft still going on, also frowning at the current administration’s penchant for excessive borrowing.
