The Federal Government has saved over N100 billion in salaries this year, by starving off imaginary staff, otherwise called �ghost workers�, in ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) under the on-going public sector reforms instituted by the present administration.
The government has also released about N550billion up to the last quarter of this year as capital allocations to spending MDAs, out of which, about N250billion representing first and second quarter tranches has been cash-backed.
Mr. Chamwasu Dala Gali, Director, Expenditure, Budget Office of the Federation, Ministry of Finance who made these disclosures yesterday in Kaduna at a Workshop on Economics and Development Journalism in Nigeria organized by the World Bank Institute (WBI), explained that by directing the MDAs to supply names of individual staff and their corresponding salaries, the Federal Government was able to save such huge amount of money that would have been lost to imaginary staff normally included in the payroll in times past.
He said due to close monitoring by the Budget Office and the fear that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) might clamp down on them, the MDAs had complied and made the government saved more than N100 billion.
He explained: �Before the advent of the Public Sector Reforms instituted by this administration, when preparing the payroll for the MDAs, the practice was that the Budget Office requested for the total list of workers in each of the ministries and their salaries, which they often exaggerated, resulting in over-bloated payroll.
�But with the public sector reforms, the salaries are closely monitored and corresponded with specific names of staff which has saved the Federal Government N100 billion, this year alone. Now, even if you have 100,000 staff, you have to give the names, staff identity number, grade levels, amongst others,� he explained.
Gali who presented a paper titled �The Budget Process and Budget Implementation in Nigeria�, said because the budget was approved late in the last fiscal year, 2005, the President had to allow the spending MDAs to draw up their capital allocations up to June this year adding however that, despite the scenario , the Federal Government has been able to release fully this year�s capital allocations totaling about N550 billion, out of which N250 billion (first and second quarters) has been cash-backed.
He however, lamented that utilization of the capital votes has been rather slow this year. This, he pointed, was because some of the MDAs have difficulties in presenting due process certificates for capital projects which they proposed to execute.
He added that for some other ones, they were still implementing their 2005 capital projects. He explained that �when we release the capital vote for the MDAs, it is kept in the Central Capital Account (CCA) domiciled at the CBN. Why we don�t want to release the money to the ministries� accounts directly, is because they may be playing with it. The money will only be released to the MDAs, when they present their due process certificates. It is when their due process certificates are presented that, the ministry of finance will release the money to the MDAs through the Office of the Accountant- General of the Federation (OAGF).�
Gali highlighted the challenges confronting budget preparation process in Nigeria to include: problems with the MDAs following the procedures of budget preparation; capacity building for the staff of the ministries, the National Assembly, amongst others, that are involved in budget preparation and; constant monitoring of the process.�
Earlier in his presentation, Deputy Director and Head of Corporate Affairs, CBN, Mr. Festus Odoko said the amount in the excess crude proceeds account totaled about $10 billion at the end of October, which formed part of the gross external reserves now at $41.2
billion. Disagreeing with some of the states and Nigerians that were clamouring for spending of the excess proceeds, he stressed the need to keep the money to mitigate against the fluctuation of volatile oil prices at the international market. According to him, �People get a little emotional about benchmark.
Oil prices are highly volatile. Today it can be up and tomorrow, it goes down.
It is so easy to spend money but cut expenditure, it is very difficult. This is why we are saying we should keep the money for rainy day.
It is because of the benchmark that we have excess crude. The states are always impatient; they want to spend the money.
Nov102006