The House of Representatives has urged the federal government to conduct a thorough and detailed audit of its employees to identify and eliminate ghost workers. This audit should be carried out by the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, with the goal of saving money and reducing the government’s wage bill.
The government was also advised to implement cost-cutting measures in order to reduce non-debt recurrent expenditures. The Committee on Legislative Compliance was tasked with overseeing this implementation.
This decision came after the adoption of a motion titled ‘Need to Investigate the Nation’s Soaring Non-Debt Recurrent Expenditure,’ which was presented by Ademorin Kuye from Lagos during yesterday’s plenary session.
Kuye, while presenting the motion, highlighted that federal government expenses related to personnel, pensions, and other non-debt recurrent expenditures had surged by 241 percent over 13 years, rising from N2.4 trillion in 2011 to N8.27 trillion in 2023.
He further pointed out that the total non-debt expenditure from 2011 to 2023 amounted to N51.97 trillion. Of this, N42.24 trillion had been spent from 2015 to the present, constituting 81.8 percent of the total expenditures during the period under review.
He stated that during this time frame, the country’s revenue suffered significant setbacks due to the obligations of debt servicing. As a result, he explained that the government had minimal resources remaining for recurrent expenses and had turned to borrowing as a solution.
“The debt servicing obligations gulped 97 per cent of the total revenue of the N3.42 trillion generated in 2011, Nigeria expended N3.34 trillion on debt servicing, meaning all federal government’s salaries, overhead and capital expenditure was financed with loans and Central Bank of Nigerian’s support.”
“The country’s revenues of N3.42trillion in 2020, N4.39trillion in 2021 and N7trillion in 2022 could hardly fund the wage bill of N5.7trillion, N5.76trillion and N7.1 trillion in 2020, 2021 and 2022 respectively,” the lawmaker argued.
He voiced concern about the continuous growth of the federal government’s expenses, including wages, pensions, and other non-debt recurrent expenditures. This trend persisted despite only slight increases in revenue and a noticeable rise in pressure for debt servicing.
Kuye expressed regret over the stark contrast in the wage bill, which surged from N2.4 trillion in 2011 to N8.7 trillion in 2023, especially in a country where 113 million people are living in multidimensional poverty. He found this situation alarming and difficult to justify.