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Tuesday, December 4, 2012

2013 budget at variance with Vision 20:2020, says ActionAid

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2013 budget at variance with Vision 20:2020, says ActionAid
Dec 4th 2012, 00:00

hussaini_abduAN analysis of the 2013 proposed budget of three key ministries Tuesday revealed that it may just be business as usual in funds allocation, while many of the provisions in the budget were said to be at variance with the goals of the National Vision 20: 2020.

The analysis, which was conducted by the international organisation, ActionAid, as part of its Just and Democratic Governance project aims to hold governments and corporations to account in improving the quality and gender responsiveness of public services, found huge disparities between government's avowed commitment to development and the reality in its budget. The survey covered the areas of agriculture, health and education.

In the education sector, the report found that 15 per cent of the main ministry's budget would go into anniversaries and celebrations.

Country Director of ActionAid Nigeria, Hussaini Abdu, stressed that despite the low allocations to agencies under the ministry, they also seem to have placed priorities on such items as anniversaries and celebrations rather than people-empowering activities and planning.

He added "For instance, the Nomadic Education Commission is voting to spend two per cent of its capital budget amounting to N7, 000,000 on celebrations compared to N3,500,000 it proposes to spend on women empowerment and nomadic girl-child education in three northern states. The Federal Ministry of Education headquarters also plans to spend 15 per cent amounting to N1, 103, 879, 000 (N1.1 billion) of its capital budget on anniversaries and celebrations. This sum will build about 276 six block class rooms including toilet facilities and staff room at N4, 000, 000 (four million naira) each!"

The commitment of government towards the health sector as spelt out in the budget for 2013 was rated 5.7 per cent as against the 15 per cent which African countries committed themselves in the Abuja Declaration on Health on April 2001.

The report observed: "Since 2001 up to date, Nigeria has never been mentioned as one of the countries that have made effort at fulfilling the promise made on her soil. At different times, nations (whose resources are not as much as that of Nigeria) such as Rwanda (18 per cent), South Africa, Botswana (17.8 per cent ), Nigeria (17.8 per cent ), Malawi (17.1 per cent ), Zambia (16.4 per cent), and Burkina Faso (15.8 per cent) have all met the mark.

"When most nations are making effort to improve on various health indices and indicators, life expectancy in Nigeria stands at 48.4 years reducing from 51 years in 1991.The health sector is therefore critical to human productivity and ultimately productivity social and economic development of any nation."

The health sector is plagued with lack of effective stewardship role of government, fragmented health service delivery, inadequate and inefficient financing, weak infrastructure among others. The 2013 budget proposal is allocating 5.7 per cent to health, far less than the required international commitments, which the country promised in 2012 at the United Nations General Assembly to progressively meet by 2015.

ActionAid also pointed out how in spite of the deplorable state of infrastructure in the country's tertiary institutions, no university in the federation received a capital vote of N500 billion, "whereas the highest capital votes in the sector are allocated to the National Library and the Federal Ministry of Education (main) with N6 billion and N7.2 billion respectively."

The pro-poor organisation called for greater transparency in the management of internally generated revenue of ministries, departments and agencies, especially those of universities, stressing the need for such funds to be subjected to normal budgetary processes.

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