The budget padding announcement by the Senate House in Nigeria has caused a lot of controversy among the citizens of the country, online and offline.
A lot of well-meaning and eminent Nigerians have reacted to the news since it broke but it is no secret that the term, ‘Budget Padding’ is not popularly known nor understood.
Senator Shehu Sani, an ex-federal lawmaker who represented Kaduna Central as a member of the 8th Senate between 2015 and 2019, has given insights into how members of the National Assembly indulge in budget padding annually.
Budget padding can be loosely defined as an inflation of budgetary figures.
In Nigeria, lawmakers have consistently argued that they possess the power of appropriation as enshrined in the 1999 Constitution (as amended).
But the former lawmaker had taken to his X page (formerly Twitter) on Thursday, March 14 to give a relatable explanation about budget padding that has been on the X trend table.
Shehu Sani had posted:
“Many people hear about padding [of budget] but don’t actually know what it means. Padding budget means tampering with the budget presented by the President or the MDAs by either adding figures to the costs of projects or by adding projects that were not in the original budget presented.To further buttress his point, Sani had given examples into how criminal the act was. He had said:
“For example, a Minister can say he wants to buy 5 Buckets for his ministry at 5,000 Naira each; magically, he will see 8 Buckets approved for him or 5 Buckets approved at the rate of 10,000 Naira each or he will see shovels and diggers added to his request for Buckets.”
The outrage on X over the budget padding plan is tremendous, and the question on everybody’s lips ranges from when Nigerians, as a whole, would sit up and protest the blatant thievery is the norm of our politicians, or if the citizens will keep suffering and smiling, as per usual.
