The Federal Government has finally admitted making terrible mistakes in the 2016 Budget after it was embarrassingly discovered that some figures were padded and manipulated.
President Muhammadu Buhari presenting the 2016 budget to the joint National Assembly
Nigeria’s Ministry of Budget and National Planning on Tuesday admitted making terrible mistakes in the 2016 Budget and blamed it on its insufficient knowledge of Zero-Based Budget it adopted for the first time in the 2016 Budget.
This revelation was made in a statement by Charles Dafe, Director of Information, Ministry of National Planning. Speaking further, he heaped the blame on civil servants saddled with the task of preparing the budget for their various ministries, departments and agencies who could not meet up with the new structure.
He revealed that before now, the government had been using the envelope system of budgeting which was easy to understand. Dafe promised that government will continue to improve the competency of the bureaucrats.
“The proposals have received general commendation. However, the details were developed using the Zero-Based Budget and is a new concept to our Budget Officers different from our traditional envelope process.
“The members of staff in the Ministry of Budget and National Planning as well as those handling budget issues in all ministries and extra-ministerial agencies are grappling to master the technicalities in the ZBB template.
“As such therefore, some errors are not unexpected in the changeover to the new ZBB approach. This was the reason the ministry arranged for the proposals to be placed on the website of the Ministry of Budget and National Planning to expose them to public scrutiny.
"The ministry has zero tolerance for malfeasance and whenever any wrongdoing is alleged, it will be thoroughly investigated and sanctions will be applied.
“The ministry assures the general public that it will continue to liaise with the relevant committees of the National Assembly to address any issues that have arisen, or may arise.
“Training and retraining to build capacity of the Budget Officers on the ZBB concept will be intensified in 2016.
“As we move forward, lessons are being learnt; the ministry’s experience and competency on ZBB will be improved and perfected upon.”
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