Ndume threatens to leave Nigeria over FG’s rising recurrent expenditure

THE lawmaker representing Borno South, Senator Ali Ndume, has threatened to quit Nigeria over the rising recurrent expenditure in the annual national budget of the Federal Government.

He threatened to leave the country if relevant authorities refused to put necessary arrangements in place to arrest the ticking time bomb.

This was during the submissions by the Chairman of the National Salaries, Income and Wages Commission, Ekpo Nta while defending his agency’s 2021 budget before the Senate Committee on Establishment yesterday.

Ndume said the NSIWC boss was supposed to know the total wage bill of the Federal Government workers.

He said such information would have helped the legislature to arrest the dangerous trend of increases in yearly recurrent expenditure component of the budget.

He said the rising increment of wages and salaries without new recruitments and constant retirement of workers on yearly basis, was unjustifiable.

According to the Senator, “Honestly speaking, a time bomb is ticking out there with this policy because of the doors shut out against millions of youths seeking for employment through the embargo .

“Making it worrisome is the fact that despite the policy , since 2018 till now, recurrent expenditure components of yearly budget have been increasing .

“In 2018, it was N3.5trn; N4trn in 2019; N4.5trn in 2020; N5.6trn in 2021and N6.83trn in the projected N16.39trn in the 2022 budget .

“It is bad for recurrent expenditure to be increasing on yearly basis without increase in the number of workforce through required recruitments .

“The embargo is turning to a time bomb that can explode at anytime as witnessed in some countries in recent past.

“Personally, I’m already thinking of where to run to if the avoidable crisis is not averted. I visited Ghana and Niger recently in this regard,” he said.