The federal government (FG) has been asked by the House of Representatives (Reps) to carry out a forensic audit of its staff to address the problem of ghost workers with a view to saving money and reduce the increasing wage bill.
In its resolution following a motion on notice sponsored by Hon. Ademorin Kuye, the House also asked the government to embark on cost-cutting measures to reduce other non-debt recurrent expenditures in the nation’s budget.
Leading debate on the motion, Hon. Kuye disclosed that the federal government (FG) personnel expenses, pensions and other non-debt recurrent expenditures has increased by 241% in 13 years from N2.4trillion in 2011 to N8,27trillion in 2023.
According to him, that the total non-debt expenditure of the government from 2011 to 2023 stood at N51.97 trillion, with N42.24 trillion of this amount expended from 2015 till date, representing 81.8% of the total expenditures of the period under review.
The Lagos lawmaker atressed that the country’s revenue within the period received massive hits from debt servicing obligations, while the government have little or nothing left for the recurrent expenditures and has resorted to borrowing.
He said further that the country’s debt servicing obligations gulped 97 per cent of the total revenue of the N3.42 trillion generated in 2011 with the government expending N3.34 trillion on debt servicing.
He said this meant that all Federal Government’s salaries, overhead and Capital Expenditure within the period was financed with loans and Central Bank of Nigerian support.
He maintained that the country’s revenues of N3.42trillion in 2020, N4.39trillion in 2021 and N7trillion in 2022 could hardly fund the wage bill of N5.7trillion, N5.76trillion and N7.1 trillion in 2020, 2021 and 2022 respectively.
He expressed concern that the Federal Government wage bill, pension obligations and other non-debt recurrent expenditures has continue to grow significantly, despite the marginal increases in revenues and apparent increases in debt servicing pressure.
He said the sharp difference in the wage bill from N2.4 trillion in 2011 and N8.7 trillion in 2023 in a country of 113 million people living in multidimensional poverty is alarming and unjustifiable.
He said that despite the present administration economic restructuring policies, revenues cannot continue to pay salaries and other recurrent expenditures when there are still humongous debt servicing obligations to be taken care of.
Contributing to the motion, Hon. Sada Soli (APC, Katsina) said the motion was an indictment on the National Assembly because it has failed to carry out due diligence on the annual budget as enshrined in the Constitution.
He said the parliament has not paid much attention to the personnel and over head cost of the government as contained in the annual budget during budget defence.
He recalled the issue of the reported issue of fraud in the Integrated Personnel Payroll ans Information System (IPPIS) for which some staff were punished.
He said the leadership of the House should allow robust scrutiny of the overhead and personnel estimate in the 2024 budget that will soon be presented to the National Assembly by the president.
