Workshop
Details
Nigeria elected its parliaments in the spring of this year. Since then, several parliaments have requested training and counselling from KAS Nigeria. Hence a workshop for each entire parliament of Plateau and Cross River will take place this year. The topic is “Budgeting – The Role of Parliaments”.
The national budget is the pivot of all politics. One can hardly do anything without money. Income and expenditure of a budget reflects the quality of the politics of a nation.
The income part of the budget shows where the State gets its money from. Taxes and other levies are the most important sources of income in developed countries. In Nigeria, it is the incomes from oil, from which the Federal Government allocates funds to the states. The states’ own incomes are very meagre in proportion. With what politics can the states increase their incomes then, without suffocating under excessive taxes?
The expenditure part of the budget shows how the income will be used, it shows the political priorities. How much money will be spent on education, how much on roads, how much on health? The big debates between the government and the opposition always take place here. The budget is balanced in an ideal situation; budget surplus is generally very rare, while budget deficit is very common. Where does the missing money come from? It comes from the national debt of course. Which debt can be defended, and which one threatens the future of the nation?
Our experts will discuss these political and other budgeting questions with the parliamentarians, and go through practical case studies and role playing in exercise groups with them.
Unfortunately, public funds disappear into private pockets in Nigeria that is why the topic “Prevention and Fighting of Corruption” has become an integral part of our political counselling. As a result of this, we have aligned ourselves with the two Nigerian anticorruption commissions, EFCC and ICPC. They will send us their special public prosecutors, who will explain to the parliamentarians where the loopholes for corrupt government are, how one can detect such holes and block them. This is actually a task which cannot be solved with a single workshop. That is why follow-up workshops will take place next year.
Both workshops will take place back to back.