Budget Scandal: Top Civil Servants May Be Fired For Sabotaging President Buhari’s Budget

FEB 06, 2016

SaharaReporters has learned that the Muhammadu Buhari administration was considering firing several top civil servants who acted in various ways to sabotage or undermine the government’s efforts to produce budget proposals that reflected financial prudence and frugality. Two top administration sources told our correspondent that “bureaucratic resistance and entrenched systemic corrupt practices dogged every move by the Presidency during the preparation of the 2016 budget,” adding that Mr. Buhari had ordered that culpable bureaucrats be identified, fired or demoted.



One source stated that, after learning that the Presidency was considering a large budget of possibly N8 trillion in order to significantly increase capital expenditure, some bureaucrats jacked up the budget proposal to N9.7 trillion for overhead and capital spending, even without personnel spending. Of the proposed N9.7 trillion, the bureaucrats had proposed that an alarming N3 trillion be spent on overhead alone, but the Presidency eventually slashed the figure to N163 billion, lower by 8% than the 2015 budget which was N177 billion. “This indicated that the Buhari administration significantly cut some of the main provisions,” the source said.

Bureaucrats also proposed to spend N2.1 trillion on personnel for the 2016 estimates compared to N1.8 trillion in the 2015 budget. However, the Presidency also cut this down to N1.7 trillion in the final estimates sent to the National Assembly. According to our source, President Buhari found the bureaucrats’ games infuriating, but decided to maintain his cool in order to meet the deadline for presentation of the budget in line with the laws and regulations governing the budget process. “While Mr. President has always stood for prudence and against waste, the bureaucrats were sneaking in controversial provisions that clearly didn’t represent the president’s standards and priorities,” said our source. He added: “Anybody who knows the president would realize that he could not have approved or endorsed some of the questionable provisions.”

Our sources disclosed that many of the controversial provisions in the budget were essentially smuggled in by what one of them described as “the budget mafia in the civil service, made up of people who consider the period of budgeting as their time of massive opportunity to arrange the stealing of public funds.” The sources assured that several top civil servants involved in the “resistance” would be fired soon. There has been fierce public criticism of controversial provisions in the budget. Our investigation revealed that the bureaucratic opposition began when the Presidency decided to engage the skills of experts to help in the budgeting process, especially to ensure the adoption of the zero-based budgeting instead of the “usual envelope and incremental system used in years past by the federal government.” Zero-based budgeting requires a focus on need and costs rather than the former system that merely transfers expenses from previous budgets, but with added upward reviews. One administration official disclosed that the “old approach, which is mastered by bureaucrats, often leads to several acts of corruption both by civil servants and political appointees.”

The Presidency had made it clear to officials of the then Budget Office and then National Planning Commission that it planned to adopt the zero-based budgeting process. Even so, bureaucrats in the departments, which were merged into the new Ministry of Budget and National Planning, refused to brief their minister, Udoma Udo Udoma, on the zero-based budget.“For weeks after the minister was sworn in, the civil servants continued to plan on the old budget model, stalling the decision to use the zero-based budget until Mr. Udoma, a former senator, found out from the Presidency. Our correspondent learned that the bureaucratic stalling led to a huge waste of valuable time, with the civil servants calculating that the Presidency would be forced to abandon the zero-based budget once time was running out. However, by early December, Mr. Udoma and the Presidency regrouped the budget planning efforts around the zero-based budget. An expert who was brought in to facilitate the new process told our correspondent that some bureaucrats still found ways to sabotage the process. “They took longer than required to come back with revisions to their estimates. In the process, many of the provisions already marked down for revision simply got snuck in, effectively pushing the

Presidency into the defensive in the face of public backlash,” he said. A presidential aide added that many provisions that have drawn the ire of the public managed to sail through the budget, which has more than 6,000 items in all, “because some of the civil servants who were meant to supervise the final product were also hostile to the zero-based process. So their uncooperative attitude just compounded the problem.”

The source, who assured that the embarrassing problems would never crop up in future budgets, pointed to an example where Bureau of Public Procurement, the agency of government responsible for maintaining a price reference list, could not provide an updated list. “The list should be updated quarterly, but the bureau “maintained a list prepared in 2013,” said the source.

The source added, “Some people were so bent on exploiting the system that the time was simply not sufficient to stop them. But since the budget is only an estimate, the implementation part now offers the Presidency the opportunity to tame the corrupt intentions and practices.” According to an expert who helped in the budget planning, “We were virtually doing vigils to beat the time since the budget had to be presented before the end of the year to the National Assembly. And while some of the civil servants eventually cooperated, those who were resistant caused the insertions of many of the provisions that are now embarrassing the government.” On the duplications that were rife in the budget proposals, the expert explained that it was “due to the difficulty experienced by the software that had been in use for planning the budget in the past. That software does not easily accommodate the zero-based budget template.”

Source: [url]http://saharareporters.com/2016/02/06/budget-scandal-top-civil-servants-may-be-fired-sabotaging-president-buhari%E2%80%99s-budget[/url]

Following.

One source stated that, after learning that the Presidency was considering a large budget of possibly N8 trillion in order to significantly increase capital expenditure, some bureaucrats jacked up the budget proposal to N9.7 trillion for overhead and capital spending, even without personnel spending.

They jacked it up because they knew they were dealing with an illiterate president, a man who failed woefully in Maths, a man with NEPA bill as certificate.
In future, presidential candidates should be disqualified if they fail to show up for debates, Buhari's incompetence would have been laid bare if he had debated.

We're now saddled for the next 4yrs with this man who wouldn't pass an interview for a job as taxi driver in the US.

See damage control that stinks to high heaven!

Was those proposals not reported to various ministers who then gave their final endorsement?

Didn't the minister of finance go through the budget before giving her final endorsement?

Didn't bubu go through the budget before sending it to the senate for confirmation?

This government is just shameless!

Tufiakwa

T

Budget padding

Wow! I must confess I'm losing grip on my strong conviction that Nigeria can and will be better. The whole system is riddled with immorality and evil,with no fear of tomorrow. My fear is that, even if this man(PMB) is truly the one sent to clean this Country and set a foundation for greatness and prosperity for all, will the evil people in the system allow him?

I need 100likes plz y'all.. want to overtake my Frnd a fellow nairalander

Explains it all, when you fight corruption it fights back. We shall overcome

thats a criminal offence.there are so many evil people trying sabotaging the effort of the president.the eveil people are much more than the good ones. God will disgrace,punish those wishing nigeria evil.

If you want to cover up your misdeeds you need be intelligent in the blame game.

Nobody is sabotaging anything, don't Bobo us!

.

Name.and shame.them

Buhari hypocrisy stinks to high heaven.NB no zombie should quote me.

Whose fault is it that ministers weren't appointed early enough to ensure proper review of the figures before that disgrace of a budget was presented to the National Assembly?

This is a story that best illustrates the incompetence of Buhari's administration. Buhari is ultimately responsible for the budget and he has himself to blame for waiting till eternity to appoint ministers. From the way he handled the budget, it would be clear the budget was not well thought out. I won't be disappointed if nothing substantial comes from it.

H

i loathe corruption, but dis buari seems like a dictator to me.

Nonsense

Please i know am in the wrong category...but please does anyone here work in Appzone ?

APC and their unrelentless noise.

For what it is worth, I haven't been paid January salary yet. Reasons being that salaries to federal tertiary institutions have been grossly understated. They should pad and unpad and just get me my due. I think I have worked for it. All these their na sermon on the hill

This is a popular guess

mazzi:
See damage control that stinks to high heaven!

Was t those proposals not reported to various ministers who then gave their final endorsement?

Didn't the minister of finance went through the budget before giving her final endorsement?

Didn't bubu went through the budget before sending it to the senate for confirmation?

This government is just shameless!

Tufiakwa

You may not realize it but sometimes, these people are too busy to go through certain things.
Personally I believe Buhari is NOT ready to present our budget yet. I believe he's still trying to study/work on some things before concluding. He's a very detailed man and likes to be absolutely sure of what he's doing.
That budget was prepared in a hurry because of complainers like you that will wail about the unavailability of the budget.

TippyTop:


They jacked it up because they knew they were dealing with an illiterate president, a man who failed woefully in Maths, a man with NEPA bill as certificate.
In future, presidential candidates should be disqualified if they fail to show up for debates, Buhari's incompetence would have been laid bare if he had debated.

We're now saddled for the next 4yrs with this man who wouldn't pass an interview for a job as taxi driver in the US.

one of the price you have to pay for not joining politics is, "you end up been governed by your inferiors ".......Plato.

Hmmm

The only avenue remaining for them to rob is the budget, since baba enforce TSA.

So when the excesses have been seen what will happen? From DasukiGate to BudgetInflationGate. I hope they find a key to all the gates

Just fire them. Enemies of progress

There is a saying that "liars has multiple tongues". Once you build Ur govt. On lies, get ready to always be on defense.

How come the civil servants no fear the much taunted Buhari's body odor that was "hurricane" the whole Nation by then.

Civil servants smuggled and no one vetted the details...even as the sub totals was so glaring that dubious sums have been add to 2015 budget that PMB and APC so much criticized. It is a case of removing a sand on someone's eyes while a log is in yours.