‘Government Is Becoming Too Ostentatious’

Liborous Oshomah, a Lagos-based legal practitioner, told JOSEPH OKOGHENUN that he has not seen any reasonable effort by the current administration to reduce ostentatious spending on elected officials.
FROM what you have seen in the 2016 budget, do you think government is ready to cut spending on elected officials, in view of the current economic realities?
This is a country where government tells you to tighten your belt because times are hard, because it is trying to save cost and there is no money in the economy, but we still see the same government officials living a very expensive and ostentatious lifestyle, with retinue of aides and convoy of cars. We see government indulge in extravagancy.

Leadership should be by example. But where is the example here? Take for example the vehicle purchase scandal currently rocking the National Assembly. You find out that majority of our lawmakers are returning to the National Assembly and the same people are entitled to car allowance.

At the end of the day, the same lawmakers are purchasing cars and Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs) for the performance of oversight functions. What is the essence of paying a man car allowance if not to perform his duties? Is the car allowance a status symbol? If your job function does not entitle you to car, then you do not need car allowance.

In the same line of thought, look at the Presidency. Before the elections last year, the current government did mention that 10 planes for a Presidential Fleet are too much. And since May last year, we have not heard that the Presidency was disposing or commercialising some of these planes.

They lambasted the former President for acquiring 10 jets when the country was in dare need of funds. But we have seen how much is budgeted to maintain those jets this year. This is unnecessary.
If government is cutting cost, these are ways of doing so.
In the same vein, the Presidency is purchasing BMW vehicles for visiting dignitaries. But these same cars were purchased by the past administration.

Recall that the Stella Oduah’s saga had to deal with the purchase of vehicles for visiting dignitaries.
I think this is not the time to play Big Brother; this is the time to look inward and say Big Brother is broke. We should find ways of cutting down our spending.
Till date, we do not know the salaries and allowances of members of the National Assembly. We do not know how much our ministers earn.

The government should live by example in these areas.
It is easy for some people to accuse one of criticising government for criticism’s sake, but that is not the issue here, because there were lots of promises and expectations prior to last year’s elections.
So, one would have expected that after the elections, some of the measures would have been put in place to ensure that cost is cut to the barest minimum.
One is not saying government should not be run, but not at the rate we are seeing.
I do not really see a marked departure from the last administration’s spending from this one. However, we can safely say that in the last administration, from what we are seeing with Dasukigate, most of the moneys budgeted were not spent properly, but found their ways into private pockets.

If you look at the figures in this year’s budget, you will find that the recurrent is still higher than the capital expenditures.
One would have expected that by now, the recurrent and capital expenditure should be at par, at least, if the capital is not higher.
It is easy for people to say the government is just coming on board and needs to be given time, but it is the budget the government proposed that we would use to benchmark the expectations for the year.

There are some things we expect the government to have cutoff, but which we still see, in form of cost of buying tires for the fleet of cars in the Presidency and feeding.

These were the same things that were complained against during last year’s elections.
So, what is really the change we all voted and clamoured for?

But the President said he was going to intervene in the purchase of cars for National Assembly members. Do you think he has the constitutional right to do so?
I think he was ill advised in that regard, because the executive and legislature are different arms of government.
I doubt whether the President has that power to withhold lawmakers’ funds or tell them what to do and what not to do.
Mind you, before this budget was proposed, all the departmental heads sat down to submit proposal to the Office of Budget Planning. So, all these issues are belated.
I expected that at the state of budget planning, all these issues would have been ironed out and taken care of.
I think the President is playing to the gallery by saying he was going to intervene on the matter. He ought to have stepped in before the presentation of the budget.

It shows that he did not study the budget before he presented it. And if he studied it, he would have known that the cost of proposed cars and the number of proposed cars are just outrageous.