Written by Ayodele Adesanmi, AbujaMonday, 19 December 2011
The Senators Forum, at the weekend, in Abuja, disagreed with President Goodluck Jonathan over the amount voted for recurrent and capital expenditure in the 2012 budget, believing that the budget could not satisfy the yearnings of the people of the country.
The forum, which is made up of the former and serving senators of the country, made this known at a gathering with the Senate President, David Mark ,insisting that it would have been better if the budget was focused on capital expenditure than recurrent.
Senator Khairat Gwadabe, who is the chairman of the forum, told newsmen that government should also look at the overbloated number of staff in government establishments and address it accordingly.
According to her, “Where you have over 70 per cent of the budget going to workforce, then it is a big burden. The burden will be too much and the country may not be able to cope. I will rather see a situation, where 30 per cent goes to recurrent and 70 to capital.”
Gwadabe, who was a senator between 1999 and 2003, informed that the forum would want government to do a proper audit of the civil service so that “we will know the number and amount expended on them monthly, so when they ask for salary increment, we willd know how it is going to be spread. Some of us do not support the manner it came because the boomerang effect is eminent.
“ Some were saying that if you put more on services, in other words, a typical civil servant will have requirements for children’s school fees, transportation, accommodation and health, but if we can design it in a manner that all these are provided for everybody adequately, you will not be fighting so much for salary increment to cushion effect of non provision of it.
SOURCE: Nigerian Tribune, 19 December 2011. http://www.tribune.com.ng/
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