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The federal government yesterday said
it has commenced the auditing of all revenue generating agencies in the
country as well as the forensic audit of the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), as part of the present administration’s
effort to restore discipline in the management of public finances.

Minister of Finance, Segun Aganga, who
disclosed this at the inauguration of the Expenditure Review Committee
in Abuja yesterday, said other steps taken by government include:
strengthening the process for the inspection of exports, including
crude oil; introducing e-payment for the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS)
as well as establishing the Asset & Liability Sovereign Risk
management desk.

Financial discipline

He said the government is accelerating
the implementation of key public financial management reforms aimed at
enshrining greater discipline in the management of public finances,
improving the quality and efficiency of government’s spending, and
optimising the allocation of resources through the Annual Federal
Budget.

According to him, as part of
government’s public finance management reforms, his ministry and the
National Economic Management team (NEMT) had adopted a strategy to
refocus the country’s economy to deliver enhanced economic growth,
fast-track institutional reforms and implement fiscal/budget reform.

The bill establishing the Nigerian
Sovereign Wealth Fund, he said, would be submitted to the National
Assembly next week, pointing out that when passed into law, it will
serve as a catalyst for domestic and international investors to
participate in the effort to reduce the country’s infrastructure
deficit as well as form part of the fiscal policy.

Part of the success story, he said is
the implementation of the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information
System (IPPIS) in 16 ministries so far, which has helped reduce the
number of ghost workers on government payroll by about 6,000, adding
the government is poised at extending the system to other ministries,
departments and agencies (MDAs).

Mr Aganga said the review of
expenditure in recent years indicated a disproportionate portion the
national budget was allocated to recurrent expenditure, a development
he described as quite unsatisfactory, given the country’s level of
socio-economic development.

“In 2007, 2008 and 2009, 67.79 per
cent, 69.42 per cent and 69.83 per cent of the Budget, respectively,
was spent on recurrent outlays. In 2010, based on the Amendment and
Supplementary Budgets, 66.4 per cent was allocated to recurrent
expenditure, compared to the balance of 33.6 per cent allocated to
capital spending. As a result, fewer budgetary resources may be
available for critical infrastructure,” he said.

“It is clear that if we do not deal
with the bloated level of our recurrent expenditure and overheads in
addition to seriously addressing the poor quality of our capital
expenditure, it will be difficult to have the economy we need to
achieve sustained double digit growth. We want to lay the foundation
that will accelerate our economic growth,” the minister declared.

Reviews and recommendations

To address the imbalance, he said
government considered committee that would review allocations and come
up with recommendations, medium-term action plan and timetable that
would guide the decision by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) on the
issue.

Specifically, the committee was charged
with the responsibility of comparing trends in our government’s
recurrent expenditure outlays with those of other countries with
similar levels of socioeconomic development; rationalise it by
identifying the most viable efficiency-promoting measures, as well as
come up with an appropriate size of the public sector workforce.

Besides, the committee would propose a
framework for future public service remuneration (and overheads) to
ensure that wage adjustments are programmed to ensure equity,
affordability and propriety of wage policy adjustments; adopt measures
to curtail the proliferation of government agencies and membership of
international organisations, as well as consider viable cost-saving
measures to institute more efficient public expenditure priorities over
the medium-term.

The Committee, which has one time
Chairman of the Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG), Anya Anya, as
Chairman, was given two months to prepare its report, including key
findings and recommendations as well as framework for its
implementation.

Other members of the 23-man committee include: one-time Head of Service, Ama Pepple; Chairman,

Federal Internal Revenue Service
(FIRS), Ifueko Omoigui-Okauru; Accountant General of the Federation
(AGF), Ibrahim Dankwambo; former Chief Executive, First Bank of
Nigeria, PLC, Jacobs Ajekigbe; Chairman, Accenture, Nigeria, Dotun
Sulaiman, and former Director General, Budget Office, Bode Agusto.