By Yusuf Ishaku Goje
What oxygen is to the human being is the same as a budget is to a State or Country. Hence, the need for residents/citizens to track its performance, using social accountability approaches, more so, on a quarterly basis. The Kaduna State 2024 Budget Performance report showed that in the first quarter of this year, out of the total approved budget of N458.2 billion, only N55.3 billion was expended, a 12.1% performance. Broken further, recurrent and capital expenditures had a 24.7% and 6.5% performance respectively.
Considering that it is the first quarter, there is no cause for a major alarm, even though not without some disturbing concerns that needs to be addressed for better performance in subsequent quarters. Commendably, despite the fact that the World Bank’s State Fiscal Transparency, Accountability and Sustainability (SFTAS) Program for Results has closed shop, the State government has not relented in meeting the Disbursement Linked Indicator one on improved financial reporting and budget reliability. This also aligns with the pillar three on Strengthening Institutions of the Governor’s SUSTAIN manifesto, particularly point five, which states, “We will continue to be driven by the state fiscal, transparency, accountability and sustainability model.”
Back to the budget performance report, it further showed that total revenue performance (including Opening Balance) was 16.3%. If one should minus Opening Balance from the total revenue, the performance will be down to 11.1%. Drilling down further, recurrent revenue had a performance of 18.6%. This is made up of Government Share of FAAC, with 24.7% and Independent Revenue, with 11.4% performance. Other Receipts, with a 1.5% performance, showed that Aid and Grants and Capital Development Fund (CDF) Receipts had a performance of 1.2% and 1.5% respectively.
Consequently, at this juncture it is imperative to call on the State government to redouble its effort especially in terms of meeting it’s independent revenue and CDF targets. The Kaduna Internal Revenue Service (KADIRS) is to be cautiously commended for its 17% performance and should be kept on its toes, considering that this is just the first quarter, which has a globally accepted performance measurement benchmark of 25%. However, the majority of the remaining revenue generation Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) had disturbingly underperformed in the same period.
Furthermore, the report showed that tax revenue had an 18.6% performance, with personal tax having the highest performance in terms of amount, generating N8.8 billion out of the target N48.7 billion. While from other taxes, out of the target of N2.7 billion, N764 million was generated. It is worrisome that under the tax revenue, the highest target of N23.8 billion under tax arrears audit, had only N1.1 billion realized. Similarly, non-tax revenue with a target of N68.5 billion, had only N4.0 billion generated, a 5.9% performance.
As regards the poor performance of CDF, and more so, that the expected loan of N150 billion, which had a meager 1.5% performance with N2.2 billion borrowed so far, is about 33% of the total budget. Simply put, if we do not adequately draw-down these multilateral and bilateral loans, the entire 2024 budget will underperform. This is more so that the government had to dole out N16.0 billion, out of the total of N25.4 billion budgeted, to service its public debt charges in the first quarter. Out of which, N14.5 billion and N1.4 billion was used to service our foreign and domestic debt respectively.
Looking deeper at the capital expenditure, the sector with the highest performance in the quarter was economic with 14.7%, that is N15.7 billion out of the budgeted N107 billion. Followed by the social sector with 3.0%, N4.7 billion out of the budgeted N156 billion; administrative sector with 0.4%, N138 million out of the budgeted N37 billion; while the following sectors: Law and Justice as well as Regional all had 0% performance.
Furthermore, the top five sub-sector performers in terms of amount are: Ministry of Public Works and Infrastructure with N14.4 billion out of the budgeted N56.9 billion, a 25.4% performance; Education with N3.4 billion out of the budgeted N82.5 billion, a 4.2% performance; Health with N1.2 billion out of the budgeted N53.1 billion, a 2.3% performance; Ministry of Housing and Urban Development with N1.1 billion out of the budgeted N8.9 billion, a 12.3% performance; Ministry of Finance with N170 million out of the budgeted N13.7 billion, a 1.2% performance.
While it is understandable that the low performance for Ministry of Agriculture, N32 million out of the budgeted N22.5 billion is due to the fact that the raining season is yet to be upon us. Even though it exposes our over-dependence on rain-fed agriculture. The State government will need to explain further why there is low performance for the social development sub-sector, N20 million out of the budgeted N11.2 billion. This is because the State government only a few weeks back publicly announced it disbursed palliative worth about N11.4 billion.
In addition, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Technology, of which Kaduna Enterprise Development Agency (KADEDA) is under currently disbursing grants, had 0% performance. Another look at the budget performance, by function classification, showed that social protection had a 10.2% performance, N2.8 billion out of the budgeted N27.7 billion. The breakdown showed that out of the 2.8 billion, about N2.7 billion went to Old Age, while social protection N.E.C only got N114 million.
As has been overtime observed, due to the accounting method being used, it is our hope that there is no wide dichotomy between releases in terms of performance and actual cash-backing. If not, the performance captured in the report will be lower, which should reflect on the level of project execution and service delivery. The State government must now redouble its effort in revenue generation, while the civil society on its part must intensify its social accountability activities. This is to ensure the 2024 Budget, in the remaining three quarters, performs better, especially for the benefit of the 8.04 multidimensionally poor in the State.
Goje is an active citizen, civil society member and OGP enthusiast.