…says allocation higher than schools and PHCs’ combined budget
Tracka, BudgIT’s service delivery promotion platform, has disclosed that a total of N81.7 billion was allocated to the construction of solar street lights in the 2023 FG Capital and Constituency projects.
The civil advocacy group reported that the budgetary allocation was higher than the total allocation to schools and primary health centers, which gulp N77.9 billion and N3.1 billion, respectively, in the budget.
It recalled that last year, a UNESCO report tagged Nigeria’s out-of-school children figures at 20 million, a staggering 52% increase from the 10.5 million reported by UNICEF in 2020. Nigeria’s child mortality rate is the second-highest in the world, and maternal mortality is at 576 per 100,000 live births, the fourth-highest in the world.
The CSO clarified: “In a country plagued with these critical issues, dwindling revenue, and a failing economy, the bogus allocation to streetlights is a gross misplacement of priority. Nigeria is also presently littered with non-functional and vandalized streetlights that have stopped working less than two years after their construction.
“Our analysis also discovered that over 687 projects worth N112 billion were allocated to agencies outside their mandate.
“The Nigerian Army was allocated N4.5 billion for the Construction of Dengi-Kwalmiya-Gagdi-Wawus Bauchi Road in Plateau State, Nigerian Institute of Oceanography and Marine Research was assigned N1.2 billion across four projects to supply medical equipment to health centers in Ogun State, and N580 million was allocated to National Root Crops Research Institute, Umudike, to construct roads and streetlights in Abia State, amongst many others.
The Acting Head of Tracka, Ayomide Ladipo, expressed her displeasure over this development.
She said: “The implications of assigning projects to agencies out of their mandate are that it undermines monitoring, evaluation, and the sustainability of these projects.
“These agencies lack the expertise and personnel to ensure quality service delivery of these projects, leading to projects under-delivery and a colossal waste of taxpayers’ money and scarce resources”, the civil society activist added.
