In several news reports, transparency remains a challenge for the federal government in revenue generation, management, and remittance by agencies classified as Government-owned Enterprises (GOEs). An existential revenue leakage that has become expansive despite widening fiscal deficits, higher debt burden and widespread hardship in the country. Checks have revealed that the government’s inability to put aggressive and effective GOEs checks in place has given the privileged few in charge of those establishments undue advantage in the non-discretionary application of the national wealth even against their counterparts in the same public sector. A review of the 2024 budget of the government establishments showed that over N93.429 billion was earmarked by 41 GEOs for a vague item of “welfare packages” in the current fiscal year despite the habitual allocation of public funds to non-existing areas or projects in the budget.
The chart table is led by the Nigeria Upstream Petroleum Regulation Commission (NUPRC) which voted N50.4 billion for welfare packages alone in the 2024 fiscal year. Curiously, NUPRC would also be spending N65.20 billion on personnel costs in the year under review aside from other financial votes for frivolities. Next in line is the National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), with N6.67 billion, and the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC). From the N21.99 billion budgeted for miscellaneous expenditure by the NDIC, it will spend a whopping N5.3 billion on workers’ welfare alone in 2024. Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) also has N2.5 billion approved for welfare packages without details on what it would be spent on, while the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) appears to have even begun the expenditure of the N1.164 billion budgeted for miscellaneous. On its part, the Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA) is taking N1.224 billion as welfare packages for staff that are already taking N978.57 million outside of allowances. The GEOs hide under the cover of revenue-generating agencies with the permission to withhold a certain percentage of the revenue as a cost of collection to unduly enrich themselves and deny the government and Nigerians their duly supposed income.
