 The federal government has earmarked $134 billion for the National Assembly in the 2022 budget. This is contained in the 2022 budget of $16.3 billion presented to the National Assembly by President Mohammed al-Buhari last week. The total amount budgeted for the legislature for the coming year is the highest ever. For 2021, the president increased the National Assembly's budget from $125 billion in previous years to $128 billion. And during the approval, the lawmakers upped the budget by $6 billion, bringing their total for the budget to $134 billion. With the president proposing $134 billion for lawmakers for the coming year, there are concerns that the amount will grow higher amidst calls for a cut in the cost of governance. Now joining us to discuss this is Gospel of Belihis, an economist. Thank you very much, Gospel, for joining us. Thank you, Miriam, for having me. Good evening. Yes. If I recall clearly, I think this was 2014 or 2015, I'm not very sure. I was on the radio. And we were talking about this same issue, the cost of running the National Assembly, where we see hardship allowances, the newspaper allowances. I'm still stuck on the hardship allowance, I'm still trying to understand why a person who sits just three times a week needs hardship allowance. I wonder how hard that is for a member of the National Assembly to need an allowance for it, but that's on the side. The major question that people are asking is that this budget keeps going up every single year, but nothing really changes about how the National Assembly is being run and how the laws are being put together. So really, the big question is why is it continuously growing? So first of all, it's interesting to state that we need a whole system-wide budget reform, in a sense, because what we find out is that there's more or less a copy and paste way of doing things, year on year and all of these things and all that. So it presents the case that there is lack of political will to cut down on the cost of governance. And when you look at it very well, capital expenditure only increased by about 2% to 5% there about. But recurrent expenditures increased significantly into double digits, you know, when compared to the 2021 budget. So that's to tell you that there is a huge interest for status quo, you know, sort of. So until there's an overall change in economic and political ideology, or which will also impact on budgetary reforms, we may not see any fundamental changes, you know. So these things will just keep happening. It's a cycle and it speaks to the fact that there is no political will, even if there have been political statements in the past to correct these nuances now, budgetary systems. I'm looking at, you know, the fact that, yeah, you just said political will. But whether if there is no political will, there is a group of people which are the Nigerians, the citizens whose tax taxpayers' monies are used to fill the pockets of these few who are in the National Assembly, I mean, including the federal government, its taxpayers' money that funds all of these things. Why can't we get that political will to come to play for us? Because number one, like I was having a conversation earlier on, we were talking about how bad the system has become, how terrible the economy is, how the Naira has deep dived. The fact that you have a million Naira and all you can buy is an iPhone. So as irrelevant as an iPhone is, that's what it can buy. That's what a million Naira today can buy for you. We've also been told that maybe in 2021, the gas price would go up to, I mean, cooking gas would go up to 10,000 Naira. The average person, for example, let's say a street sweeper or let's say a cleaner in an office. Can that person afford 10,000 Naira to buy a gas cylinder? Let's not also forget that we're trying to chase out coal, we're trying to chase out the kerosene stove, we're trying to look for green energy. But then we're also expelling gas every day and we're just flaring it. We're not doing anything. So it's a poor pour of issues. I mean, you and I can go at this all day. Why is the average Nigerian person, I know that this is not your job, not pushing for these political wills to be to be grown within our leaders, because there has to be something done about it. If in 2015 we had this conversation and now we are in 2021 having the same conversation, all we do is more and grumble about it, but then we still pay through our noses. Why do we have to do it? Yeah, so fundamentally, there is a problem of lack of policy coherency in the sense that's based on the fact that one policy does not enable another policy to function. So in complex societies and economies like Nigeria, it's in a situation where one policy has the capacity to pull out more severe problems. I'm trying to use a layman language now, pull out more severe problems for the economy and society when you look at other policy vis-à-vis in that context. So yes, you want to push for a green economy, renewable energy, sustainable energy and all of that. And yet, doing the immediate policy to ensure that gas is made available at an affordable price. So you think of it as more or less like an elite commodity, particularly made available for a class of consumers in the sense. One of the reasons why people are not making enough agitations for accountability in this space is number one, there is a gross lack of citizen awareness. So there's something we call a citizen agenda setting. Until the citizen are aware, until they come together and put some form of organized influence, they may not be able to hold government accountable, and that's what we need to get to. So if you ask Aberdeen, Nigeria now, are you aware about the budget and what it means for you and the society at large, to a large extent, you'll get a no answer or you just get a very, very surface level answer in the sense. So we need to move influence on those on an individual level to an organized level. Citizens need to be more educated, they need to be more aware, and there needs to be an agenda around citizens, all right? I think we're having a little connection problem with you, Gospel, but let's see if we can quickly correct that and bring you back. Can you hear me, Gospel? Okay, we lost you for a second. We lost you for a second. Let's quickly go to the budget of the National Assembly. I mean, the most important thing is we would like to know what the breakdown of that budget is, but that breakdown has been withheld. We have the FOI, we have other means of getting this information. Why do you think the National Assembly is withholding the budget breakdown from the press, from people who are interested in knowing how much is in it and how these monies are going to be spent? So fundamentally, I mean, if we're being very honest, it's what plays out when you have extracting institutions at the forefront, extracting institutions use policy instruments to a large extent, all right, to empower themselves and keep the economy at the level of stagnation over a period of time. And one of the elements of these extractive decisions, one of the things they do is holding government information or necessary information that should be available for the public, all right? So that's questions on accountability and transparency in governance as well, all right, because they know that if this information goes out, there will be some more probing and there will be some more trying to hold public officers accountable at least by pressure groups or civil society groups and the likes. So it's just an element or a characteristic of an extractive institution and I just play it out right there. So Nigeria is not so much of an intelligent democratic system where you expect a lot of transparent governance and accountability in doing things and using budget as a critical and proper instrument to drive growth and development, which also lead me back to my answer in the previous question that until the citizens begin to coordinate themselves and have an agenda to influence government policy budgetary reforms and how these instruments are used to drive social economic inclusion until we get to that point, then we would always keep seeing a copy and paste situation year on year at a station where a lot of elements in the budget system and budget process are taken away from the public view and all of that. So it's just a characteristic of extractive institutions and until things are done better and until the citizens are more aware and they have an organized agenda towards this things, we may not see a critical change or a drive towards more increasing institutions or increasing governance. I used to think that I was smart in terms of knowing the systems that our governments run until someone asked me a few days ago what kind of economy that we run in Nigeria had no idea because for a second there I thought it was a mixed economy but then on the one hand I would think it was capitalist but it's a bit hazy for me because I'm not an economist you are maybe you can help me with that but then secondly I also want to talk about the fact that if we're probing the National Assembly to give us an open budget or let us know what exactly the breakdown is how many times have we asked that governments tell us exactly what they've done with the budget so far and give us a breakdown how much money they've spent what's left over if it's going to be rolled over into the new budget we never really asked for those breakdowns so why are we pushing the National Assembly if this is what is the given thing you know in the ministry's department agencies including the federal government and government house so on one end the ministry of budget economic budget and planning has taken some critical steps to introduce budget implementation reports so if you go to the website you'll find some budget implementation reports from previous years now that's one second those information are not made in quotes and unquotes I see is what's the general public all right or they're not digested in a way that general public can understand so you need more state actors or NGOs who would jump in the pool and close the gap between sharing government implementation data or information all right to the average Nigerian citizen now the average Nigerian citizen also has issues around interests and commitments all right towards understanding what government is doing and how they're doing it and how much funds are going into it and until that circle is complete you cannot hold you know the government responsible so that information actually exists on what's available all right sorry on how budgets have been implemented about years but it's seemingly not made available to the public in in a way they understand that's one second they also agree with you that there are layers of these information that are not made public and that should be so that speaks to the fact that what kind of economy do we run the question rather on what kind of economy do we do and through that extent we run an extractive economy not necessarily a capitalist economy in the sense all right if you talk about capitalist economies or creative capitalism you talk about a station where a lot of people can thrive ideas can thrive innovation can thrive there are key enablers around dream business and if you look at this thing from a realistic perspective all right it has a huge impact on socioeconomic problems like unemployment and the likes but what you have in the industrial where you have a critical few are empowered and termed as individual leaders or headline captains of industries all right who still use that opportunity that they have all right to recycle more wealth into their space or back into the political space not necessary to be redistributed for the common man or the average Nigeria in the sense so it's a cluster of different dynamics that are feeding back into that extractive economy all right so until the future where better positions to intolerance from an extra shift in the cost from extractive economy engagement to inclusive economy and until we get to that point we can start talking about shared prosperity social inclusion and the likes any sort of that is just being politically correct in the sense gospel of daily always a pleasure to have you help us to break these things down and make sense of it thank you very much thank you for having me as well all right well thank you all for staying with us well let's before we wrap things up let's find out what Nigerians think about small parties meddling ahead of 2023 elections stay with us if all these small smaller parties come together to stand against all these uh how they call it all the superpower party this apc pdp i think that could go a long way in maybe in reducing the the much more accurate power to this pdp and episode superpowers so all those smaller parties have got useful and they should form an armagamation to collaborate to fight against all these superpowers i think that will make us half a maybe fresh candidate new new candidate if they agree and they accept it like that the john hand to fight two party nigeria may become better both the smaller parties and the pdp they have the same characteristics leave the smaller parts because if you give the opportunity to the smaller party though we will do more than what the what the seven bigger parties are and if you find out even the smaller parties who are bankrolling them the smaller parties bankroll my policy and the bigger party to use for them to have a place to fall back to in the future if there's any the bigger party doesn't favor them they are basically the same thing now if all of them join together you go see do the same thing according to the situation of this country because both the smaller is ready to steal the big one is already a robber for this country now between the smaller joined all of them together both the pdp apc npcipc everything going together is always do the same thing for 2023 yes i think that should be a good idea but how would that work when god for that reason and the country itself has been colonized by those boozles i don't want to leave the seats for the upcoming parties to emerge so i think it's a good idea but then the possibility of it happening is what i have not seen i've not seen the lane light once thank you for being part of the conversation we hope you enjoyed the show we will see you tomorrow on plus politics i am mary anacone have a good evening