Gubernatorial candidate of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) for Taraba State, Senator Emmanuel Bwacha, has urged Nigerians to be more involved in budget formulation, stating that the introduction of budget padding in the country’s media space has helped to cover corruption in budgeting.

He explained that the constituency projects brought in by legislators are meant to reflect the needs of their constituencies, with development a privilege from the executive arm to the legislators, who are in touch with the grassroots.

Bwacha told The Guardian in an exclusive interview that what lawmakers do is to bring the wishes of their people to the budget process. However, he stated that this is what the Nigerian media wrongly call budget padding.

Dismissing the notion that constituency projects are the same thing as padding, the former lawmaker argued that budgeting is exclusive to the parliament and includes preparation and approval of a budget.

According to him, the estimate can be prepared by the executive, but the legislature will have to approve it, and also effect an amendment where necessary, “because that is within their powers.

Nevertheless, Bwacha said transparency could be achieved in the execution of constituency projects, as it is the duty of the executive to do so through the anti-corruption agencies, including the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), which monitor budget implementation.

He regretted that since the citizens are not being carried along in the budgeting process, the outcome might not yield the expected results. According to him, citizens can “start from a feasibility study to ascertain the needs of the communities.

“You have specific individuals assigned to carry out this – that is the work of the budget department, by the way. So, if this is done, you see that what is reflected in the budget is the wishes of the people.

“But if a feasibility study or opinion poll is not carried out, you will end up putting what will suit your interests as a leader, because you have a mindset that you want to steal.

“You can budget for anything that is not even needed, and eventually that thing might not even be done, or the project might not be executed, but the money will be paid. This is what we are witnessing in the state.

“So, there are instances like this – money taken away;
project not executed – and this is what has caused a lot of failure in the budgeting process, particularly in my own state, Taraba.

“At the National Assembly, there are processes we adopted. Sometimes it’s not a perfect process, because at the larger scale, too, we need to learn from past mistakes.”