Former NASS Clerk calls for sustainable monitoring of budget implementation

By Christiana Ekpa and Umar Muhammad Puma

Former Deputy Clerk to the National Assembly, Mr Olayide Adelami, yesterday called for a sustainable monitoring regime that would guarantee effective budget implementation in the country.
Adelami told newsmen in Abuja that the country needed to use its yearly budgets as instrument for effective and sustainable development.
He emphasised the need for inclusiveness and transparency in the annual budgetary process in order to reduce rancour between the executive and the legislature.
According to him, bad budget due mostly to poor implementation amounts to collective failure, frustration and underdevelopment.
“Our budget increases every year as an improvement but the outcome of such budgeting is contradictory.
“You find out that it is difficult to reconcile budget outcomes in Nigeria with the figures and part of the solutions is that we must have a regime of budget monitoring that is sustainable.
“We need to monitor the budget because it is like putting your money somewhere and we need to follow the money.
“Once the budget is approved and it is rolled out, government should come up with a strong machinery to follow how the money is spent.
“At the end of the day, a monetary and evaluation report should form part of the information required to process the following year’s budget,’’ Adelami said.
He further said that lack of effective machinery to monitor budget implementation as well as late passage made successive governments to fail in executing budgets.
“Successive governments in Nigeria have attempted using the budget to tackle the problems of unemployment and infrastructure deficit unsuccessfully.
“The failures can be located in ambiguities in the institutional framework guiding the budget process, late submission of budget by executive to legislature and the attendant tussle as well as late passage of the budget,’’ he said.afternoon Adelami, however, called for budget laws that would check misconduct at all stages of the budget process.