From Sola Ojo, Kaduna
With 61 percent performance in 2023, the Kaduna State budget performed below at least 85 percent of the Public Financial Management (PFM) recommended benchmark, according to the state full-year budget performance report recently released by the Planning and Budget Commission (PBC).
According to the World Bank, the term “public financial management” commonly describes elements of an annual budget cycle, which typically centres around (1) budget formulation; (2) budget execution; (3) accounting and reporting; and (4) external security and audit
The PFM prescribed benchmark for the first, second, third, and fourth quarters are 25 percent, 50 percent, 75 percent, and 100 percent performance respectively.
Leveraging this recommended benchmark, the acceptable full-year performance should not be less than 85 percent.
Further reacting on the PBC report, a budget analyst and Team Lead, Coalition of Associations for Leadership, Peace, Empowerment and Development (CALPED), Mr Yusuf Ishaku Goje, noted that addressing development challenges largely depends on the quality of planning, realistic budget performance and value for money in service delivery.
Goje further noted that the state full-year 2023 budget performance report recently released by the PBC showed that out of the final total budget of N376.3 billion, there was an actual release of N230.3 billion. This is a 61.2% performance, with a huge balance of N145.9 billion.
“The question begging for an answer is, if we cannot achieve at least 85% performance in 2023, what are we going to do differently to achieve satisfactory performance in 2024, with a higher budget of N458.2 billion? He asked.
He continued, “the 2023 performance has again validated the 2022 Auditor-General’s report, which opined that our revenue estimates are exaggerated and bogus. This is a cause of concern, considering that the State government in 2024 has increased the targets of some of the non-performing revenue-generating ministries, departments, and agencies.
“The report further shows that recurrent expenditure had 66.7% performance, while capital expenditure had a performance of 57.5%. On the revenue side, the government share of the Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) had an impressive 114.3% performance, while the independent revenue of the government had a performance of 69.9%, with a balance of N26.8 billion.
“Other receipts performed far below expectation – with aid and grants as well as capital development funds (CDF) having a 28.2% and 48.1% performance respectively. These unimpressive performances were evident, especially in key sub-sectors with allocations above N10 billion.
“A look at some of these key sub-sectors shows that the Ministry of Education had 55.0%, Ministry of Health had 58.8%, Ministry of Public Works & Infrastructure had 56.2%, Ministry of Internal Security & Home Affairs had 66.4%, State Assembly had 39.6%, Ministry of Finance had 74.0%, Ministry of Housing & Urban Development had 68.0%, and Metropolitan Authorities had 77.7%.
“So despite the State government meeting of the benchmark allocations for education and health, the performance leaves much to be desired.
“A few other MDAs with budget allocations below N10 billion include: the Ministry of Human Services & Social Development had 7.1%, Ministry of Agriculture had 71.1% of the meagre budget allocation of N1.8 billion, Ministry of Environment & Natural Resources had 40.4%, and Ministry of Sports Development had 26.7%.
“What is more worrisome is not the budget releases but whether there was actual cash-backing as well as whether it was adequate, gotten timely, and efficiently utilised by the MDAs.
“Governor Uba Sani has impressively hit the ground running in implementing the 2024 approved budget with groundbreaking activities. However, budget implementation is not a sprint race but a marathon.
“Sustaining the current momentum will be dependent on high revenue performance and quality of utilised releases to strategic priorities down the line. More so, the State has the burden of debt service to the tune of about N25.4 billion. We look forward to improved budget performance in 2024”.