By Emmanuel Ogbodo<\/p>\n
BudgIT, through its open-source service delivery monitoring platform Tracka, has raised concerns over the allocation of N732.5 billion for empowerment projects in Nigeria’s 2024 federal budget. This substantial amount, deemed vague by the organization, exceeds the N646.5 billion allocated to health projects, sparking controversy and scrutiny.<\/p>\n
In a statement released on Monday, BudgIT highlighted the discrepancy, emphasizing Nigeria’s critical need to address its alarming child mortality rate, which was the second-highest in the world in 2023. Despite this dire health crisis, the 2024 budget allocations fail to reflect a necessary prioritization of the health sector.<\/p>\n
“Tracka maintains that empowerment projects are vague and challenging to track due to their nature. They are also used as a funnel to transfer public resources to party loyalists, resulting in the misuse of public funds,” the organization stated.<\/p>\n
Tracka’s analysis identified a total of 4,440 empowerment projects in the 2024 budget. Initially limited to constituency projects, empowerment projects have gradually been incorporated into capital projects through insertions by the National Assembly. Notably, the National Assembly inserted 7,447 projects valued at N2.24 trillion into the 2024 budget. Tracka views this as a problematic trend, given the nation’s significant infrastructure gap and budget deficits.<\/p>\n
Further analysis revealed that over 2,558 projects worth N624 billion were allocated to agencies outside their mandate. One example is the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), which received N5 billion for procuring and distributing official vehicles to selected traditional rulers in the six geopolitical zones. Another example is the Nigeria Institute of Oceanography and Marine Research (NiOMR), allocated N2.32 billion to construct a 3.5km road from Methodist Church Ibu to the Eri River.<\/p>\n
Gabriel Okeowo, BudgIT\u2019s Country Director, expressed deep concern over these findings. He highlighted that assigning projects to agencies outside their mandate undermines the monitoring, evaluation, and sustainability of these projects. These agencies often lack the expertise and personnel to ensure quality service delivery, leading to significant waste of taxpayers’ money and scarce resources.<\/p>\n
“The misallocation of funds not only hampers the effective implementation of projects but also opens doors for corruption and embezzlement. It’s crucial for government agencies to stick to their core mandates to ensure that public funds are utilized efficiently,” Okeowo stated.<\/p>\n
BudgIT has called on anti-graft agencies to investigate the anomalies in the 2024 budget to prevent diversion, misappropriation, and embezzlement. The organization also urged elected representatives and Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) to provide timely updates to the public and ensure the quality implementation of these projects, so Nigerians can derive maximum benefit from public funds.<\/p>\n
The implications of such budgetary misallocations are far-reaching. Health experts warn that neglecting critical sectors like health in favor of ambiguous empowerment projects could exacerbate existing public health crises. The underfunding of health initiatives, especially in a country with high child mortality rates, poses a severe risk to the well-being of millions of Nigerians.<\/p>\n
Moreover, the inclusion of non-mandate projects under various agencies not only disrupts the intended purpose of these agencies but also stretches their limited resources thin. This could lead to poorly executed projects and a lack of accountability, further deepening public mistrust in government initiatives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Emmanuel Ogbodo BudgIT, through its open-source service delivery monitoring platform Tracka, has raised concerns over the allocation of N732.5 billion for empowerment projects in Nigeria’s 2024 federal budget. This substantial amount, deemed vague by the organization, exceeds the N646.5 billion allocated to health projects, sparking controversy and scrutiny. In a statement released on Monday, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38152,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38151"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38153,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38151\/revisions\/38153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}