The Federal Government has proposed measures aimed at ensuring fiscal prudence . In the proposed measures contained in “Document Statutorily Required to Accompany the Annual Budget to the National Assembly’’ which was forwarded to the National Assembly by President Goodluck Jonathan, he said the cost-control measures adopted in the 2011 budget had been revised “in line with current realities to help free financial resources for government’s more critical projects/ programmes in preparation of the 2012 budget.’’ The president explained in the document that “the strategy was to isolate projects and programmes which would not necessarily contribute to the government’s achievement of its developmental goals and which exclusion would not negatively affect the attainment of its developmental goals.’’

One of the areas affected by the review, according to the president, is the recurrent expenditure. In this regard, he said: “The trend in aggregate recurrent expenditure has been on the increase in recent years. This is particularly reflective of wage increases and sub-efficient expenses in the MDAs and makes it expedient to rationalise and closely manage recurrent expenditure. Immediate measures adopted include implementing quick-wins in already identified areas such as the reform of the electricity tariff regime, adoption of immediate steps to curtail the proliferation of government agencies and membership of international organisations , and the aggressive completion of the rollout of IPPIS to all the MDAs and parastatals.’’ The president further said that the area of procurement would be standardised to save cost. “Technical items and items of specialised nature should be procured directly from their manufacturers. This is with an objective to maintain quality standards while achieving cost savings in maintenance services. In addition, such procurement should have warrantee and maintenance agreements’’, he said.

On purchase of new vehicles, the president said: “Expenditure on the procurement of motor vehicles has been deferred. Provision of critical security vehicles and other specialised operational vehicles (e.g. ambulances, Black Maria, Hilux Vans and the likes) for specific agencies of government are, however, exempted’’, he said.He added : “In the same vein, expenditure relating to the construction, purchase or acquisition of new office buildings has been deferred and excluded from the 2012 budget.’’ In the area of insurance, he said: “Provisions for expenditure on insurance premiums in Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the Federal Government are to be centralised, hence facilitating better monitoring and ensuring cost- efficiency.” The president also said that the training of staff should be done locally. “MDAs may continue to meet their manpower training and capacity building requirements by patronising management training organisations… However, where there is a dearth of expertise in desired subject areas locally, MDAs are enjoined to arrange training modules holding within the country with foreign experts as facilitators. This way, transport and accommodation costs are curtailed while availing more officers of the training opportunities within the budgetary constraints’’, he said. The National Assembly has complained about the rising cost of governance and decided to lead the way by cutting down on its overhead. The lawmakers called on the executive to follow suit.