Saatah Nubari: Budget 2016 For The Federal Ministry of Science And Technology #SaatahBudgetSeries

We are now on the thirteenth piece of the #SaatahBudgetSeries. This piece will focus on the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology, highlighting the suspicious and outrageously stupid provisions therein.

The Federal Ministry of Science and Technology has about 97 agencies/institution under it, and so as not to waste time, I will not be listing them. I will instead pick provisions I think are worthy of your attention from the different agencies/institutions, and lay them bare for you to be aware of.

FEDERAL MINISTRY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

The Federal Ministry of Science and Technology has a total budget of 53,743,337,717; 25,853,337,717 is for “Recurrent Expenditure” while 27,890,000,000 is for “Capital Expenditure.” Now, let us begin the budget analysis in earnest.

The Federal Ministry of Science and Technology budgeted 25,725,000 for the “Identification, Review and Analysis of Waste Management and Control in Nigeria. This particular provision does not look bad till you notice that there exist another provision for the same item, and a separate 25,725,000 is also budgeted for it.

279,835,000 is what the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology budgeted as the “Operating Cost on the National Council on Science and Technology Programme.” 42,286,756 is then budgeted for the “National Council on Science and Technology Programme End to End Entrepreneurial Eco-System Scan.” a separate   13,100,000 is budgeted for “End to End Entrepreneurial Eco-System Scan.” I do not understand why this Ministry chose to jumble up words and allocations in a confusing manner, this is rather suspicious.

29,550,000 is budgeted for “Data Analysis and Trends in W2W,” while another provision for the same item exists, with a budget of another 29,550,000. The Federal Ministry of Science and Technology’s budget is filled with lots of duplicated items and provisions which are quite suspicious and might probably be a means for people in this ministry to corruptly enrich themselves.

59,350,000 is budgeted for the “Engagement of Relevant Coaches, Facilitators, Volunteers, etc. as Role Models.” Just like other items and provisions that have been mentioned earlier, this provision is also duplicated in the budget and has another 59,350,000 appended to it. It is very obvious now that the people who drafted this ministry applied a scientific model I will call “duplicitously overwhelm and deceive, so as to corruptly enrich yourself on an elephantine scale.”

The people who drafted the budget for the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology are not done with duplicating items in the budget. 66,850,000 is what is budgeted for the “Identification of International Markets (Both New and Potential) For Services and Products,” And as usual, there is another provision for the same item again in the same budget with a provision of 65,850,000. Just like in the bible when God told Noah to bring in animals into the ark in twos, the budget drafters of the Federal Ministry have brought in graft induced provision into the budget in twos.

847,040,060 is budgeted for “Recycling Equipment According to Waste Audit Requirement and Capacity.” Well, another 843,000,000 is budgeted for the same item again, bringing the total to 1,690,040,060. So you can see that the Science and Technology Ministry will spend almost two billion naira to “Recycle” equipment. I will suggest something to them; since there has been an increase in job loss in the last 8 months, it will be of more economic importance if the money budgeted for “Recycling” that equipment is channelled instead to building a recycling plant. I am very sure it will create jobs for so many people, both formally and informally. My suggestion was free and not compulsory. I expect the people in this ministry to continue with their obvious plan to divert these funds to their personal bank accounts.

The Federal Ministry of Science and Technology has also budgeted 731,244,062 for the “Construction/Provision of Electricity.” Just so you know, 731,244,062 can electrify 38 communities, 23 communities in Ondo and 15 communities in Enugu State.

The National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructures had its capital budget increased by over 3200% (147,978,783) from its 2015 budget to 4,792,061,172. Out of the 4,792,061,172 capital budget, 4,458,232,520 will be for “Research and Development.” 238,028,652 will be used to “Repair/Rehabilitate Office Buildings,” while 62,000,000 will be used to “Rehabilitate/Repair Boundaries.” I do not understand how damaged the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure’s offices are, that they will need 238,028,642 to “Repair/Rehabilitate.” I am very sure they can build an entire new set of office buildings, but I understand, man must wak *Inserts Parley Brown’s Man Must Wak CD*. As for the 62,000,000 for the “Repair/Rehabilitation of Boundaries,” I would love to know what kind of boundaries we are talking about here; is it our local boundaries, or our international boundaries?

In 2014, the National Space Research and Development Agency (Abuja) spent 442,000,000 on the “Construction/Provision of Office Buildings,” while in the 2016 budget, they plan to spend 410,495,544 for the same item. I wonder how many offices they will have to build before they land a man on the moon—lest I forget, a satellite once got missing in this country, and something tells me they must have been busy building offices when it happened.

We have an institute called the Nigerian Building and Road Research Institute, and they have budgeted 1,425,645,000 to “Purchase Industrial Equipment.” They also have two provisions for “Land Acquisition and Environmental Impact.” The first provision is 250,293,325 while the second provision is 95,000,000, all for the same item.

We have come to the end of the thirteenth part of my budget analysis series. One thing I noticed with the budget for the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology is that, apart from the graft enabled and shoddy way the budget was prepared, there exists tens of research and development science and technological institutions. It is quite unfortunate that despite not lacking research and development institutions for science and technology, for the over five decades of our independent existence, we have failed to come up great innovations in the science and technology field. It puts to waste the huge sums of money these institutions receive as budgets every year. That we are not a serious country is not a secret, but this budget goes a long way in making it official. God help us.

The in-between for today is: The Federal Ministry of Works, Power and Housing will spend 919,621,146 for “Research and Development on Housing Matters.” Have a wonderful day.

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Saatah Nubari is on Twitter @Saatah

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