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FRANKTALK: The budget comedy

This is one of the times I feel so happy with my absolute ignorance about budget matters. For if I were any smarter, I’d be among those currently splitting hairs over a financial projection that is, at best, an academic exercise.

And it can’t be more so than the fact that the Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC), which ought to have played a key role in the clobbering together of the budget proposal, was only inaugurated a clear 24 hours after the budget was presented to the joint session of the National Assembly.

And yet, the council is supposed to help define and recommend the direction of our economy. It is, as the president redirected, to pull 40 million Nigerians out of poverty in the next four years.

Curiously, this most important task of the PEAC is not worthy of being captured by the budget.

Of course, one is not surprised. We’re already too used to operating outside the budget.

But that’s not all the comedy I see. For instance, I’m still wondering what we need all of N100 billion for defence. Do we need that much to hire marabouts and prayer warriors? Where in this country do we really change the dollar at N305 to the dollar? I will not say anything about the less-than-honest oil benchmark and the continuous deceit about our bpd crude oil production.

I also choose to stay silent about about how we would close our borders and still keep the customs and immigration people, who have failed to police the borders, at their jobs. Or how we all agree that we don’t have reliable data on anything, yet we budget handsomely for the bureau of statistics. Surely, our budget has become a ritual taken too far.

The only difference is that this 2020 budget is almost like a blackmail document, targeted at the National Assembly and the lawmakers, who, at every opportunity, are reminded of their promise to support the Presidency (and the APC) in delivering the dividends of democracy. And the blackmail is not just that the budget, which does not appear to have been thoroughly thought out, has been hurriedly presented “early”, so that the blame for delaying the budget can subsequently be heaped on the legislature.

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Already, the lawmakers have been intimidated and blackmailed to the extent that it is now akin to “apostasy” for them to contemplate tweaking anything in the document PMB sent to them. For if they do, PMB would not sign the bill. And in the unlikely event of their ever summoning the audacity to override his assent and passing the bill, Buhari would simply refuse to implement. After all, how many of the past budgets have we implemented up to 50%? And did the heavens fall? No!

Apart from refusing to implement any such amended budget, usually vilified as ‘padding’, PMB would soon follow it up with a supplementary budget, which would return whatever the NASS yanked off from the original budget, and take us back to square one.

Yes! We, the gullible people of Nigeria, have been made to believe that, on matters of budget, only PMB and the Presidency mean well for the country. That any alteration to PMB’s budget proposal by the lawmakers is criminal, and informed by the desperation of thieving lawmakers to smuggle something for themselves into the document. We have since forgotten that one of the reasons the Assembly exists is to scrutinise the budget. But what we have today is a situation whereby the president submits his budget proposal to NASS just to fulfill all righteousness. It expects the document returned to it untouched. Untampered with. It’s like the case of a student, who submits his answer scripts to his teacher, with a warning that he must not only not fail, but must also be awarded a particular score.

The budget is heavily anchored on new taxes, some of which require legal/constitutional backings, which are not yet in place. But the lawmakers must pass it as it is. They would then have to go back to enact the necessary laws to back it up. For the lawmakers, it’s a no-win situation. If they decide to tarry on the appropriation bill, in order to enact the enabling laws, they would be accused of delaying the budget. If they pass the budget without the enabling laws, they would also be accused of tying the president’s hands and frustrating budget implementation. And if they do not satisfactorily interrogate the document, we the people would accuse them of being a rubber stamp.

In all, it appears clear that both the executive and the legislature know that the 2020 budget proposal does not hold the salvation for Nigeria’s economic quagmire, but nobody wants to say so, save for a few dissenting voices in the hallowed chambers, who are either shouted down or ruled out of order, even before they open their mouth.

So, the Assembly will give Buhari his budget, and things would continue to remain the same, even as the rhetoric would continue to claim otherwise.

But there is one positive to the budget: and that is the Tax Credit Scheme arrangement.

Instead of us aggregating all our taxes in one pot, for one government official to convert to his family’s ‘life pension’, is it not just better the prospective tax payer finances public projects directly?

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Every time I drive through the current madness along Apapa/Oshodi expressway, I can’t but say a prayer for Aliko Dangote. Even if his company never pays any more taxes for life, I would be okay with it as long as he succeeds in fixing that road – a road which has defied every direct government effort.

But if truth be told, there is no way Dangote would not spend less on fixing that road than any FEC contract-award would have laid out.

I think Zenith Bank, UBA, Access Bank, etc. can also identity other roads/projects and execute in lieu of taxes. Rather than accumulating tax arrears and fines, and looking for who to settle, our telecom giants could just help us fix one rail line, airport, schools or hospitals. Because all the taxes they’ve been paying so far have all gone the way of our crude oil money; swallowed.

We can get government to cost the jobs, and allow the corporate, and even individual taxpayers, to pick and execute in lieu of tax. After all, we are already doing a lot of them without any tax waivers.

…..Matter of urgent national importance

I think the time has come for all of us to ask Bobrisky to be going about with his/her own public toilet. I, for one, will raise alarm if I see ‘shim’ in a men’s toilet. I also advise ladies, who may run into to ‘shim’ in a ladies’ toilet, to do likewise. Unless, of course, she/he agrees to strip, to enable us confirm whatever contraption lies between the legs on every occasion he wants to use a public restroom.

I feel pained seeing us abandon this Bobrisky wahala to Otunba Segun Runsewe alone.

Weren’t we supposed to have a law about these things?

It’s becoming a national embarrassment.

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