Jibrin and Dogara: Allies Torn apart by budget padding scandal
Tony Ogunlowo
As the budget padding controversy rages on members of the public wonder what’s next.
When it comes to pilfering public funds Nigerian politicians ought to be awarded a Nobel Prize for the ingenious ways they devise to keep their fingers in the till. They will always find a way to circumvent whatever security firewalls are put in place.
Gone are the days when politicians used to be content with a ten percent commission from contracts awarded to friends and families. Now its widespread looting as seen in the days of the tenure of ex-President Goodluck. Then it was as if certain politicians had a key to the back door to the Treasury and helped themselves to whatever they wanted.
When President Buhari was sworn in last year he embarked upon a campaign to rid the country of corruption.
He was wrong.
Under his watch the sneaky politicians had devised a new way to steal money and without a doubt it’s been going on, for a while, unnoticed. It’s called ‘budget padding’.
To the uninitiated budget padding simply means you indulge in a bit of creative accounting and inflate the budget of a ministry, department or project, by a number of extra zeros for instance, to accommodate any unforeseen expenses. So if you have budget of N10 Million Naira you add a further N2.5 Million Naira to ‘pad’ it. Legally it’s okay to do this (even though it’s deemed by the experts to be unethical and wasteful) as long as the excess, you no longer need, is remitted back to the Treasury at the end of the financial year and not creamed off into the back pockets of those who intend to steal it.
So the 2016 budget has been inflated by more than 40 Billion …Read More
Source:: PM Newspaper
