IN recent times, federalism has been advanced as a style of government that can provide safeguards against the potential threats of centralized abuse and decentralized opportunistic behaviour while bringing decision making closer to the people.Nevertheless, federal systems in recent decades have come under increased strain from domestic and external factors. Two outstanding influences, -globalisation and the information revolution- are bringing about intense changes in the division of powers within and beyond nation states.The overwhelming influence of these twin forces is moving the world from centralised governance structures to globalised and localised configurations, sometimes called globalised governance. The preceding scenario, however, does not appear to reflect the situation in Nigeria.Rather the Federal Government has continued to proliferate in its powers and functions, which has increasingly crowded out the states and especially local councils.The 1999 Constitution, in section 1 (f) of the fourth schedule prescribes that local governments shall, among other functions, construct and maintain roads, streets, street lightings, drains and other public highways, parks, gardens, open spaces, or such public facilities as may be prescribed from time to time by the House of Assembly of a State. These functions are defined with the understanding of the trilogy of public functions'namely, allocation, redistribution, and stabilisation.Fiscal federalism literature has traditionally reached a broad consensus that while the first function can be assigned to lower levels of government, the latter two functions are more appropriate for assignment to the national government.Hence, macroeconomic management, especially stabilisation policy and other such functions for which the federal government's size provides the best scale economics in realizing, was seen as clearly a central function.However, the modeling and actual functioning of many departments and agencies of the federal government does not seem to recognise the above fact.For instance, section 4 (1)(a) of the River Basins Development Authorities Act mandates the authority to construct, operate and maintain dams, dykes, polders, wells, boreholes, irrigation and drainage systems, and other works necessary for the achievement of the Authority's functions and hand over all lands to be cultivated under the irrigation scheme to the farmers.Additionally, section 4 (1)(c) of the same act mandates the authority to construct, operate and maintain infrastructural services such as roads and bridges linking project sites: provided that such infrastructural services are included and form an integral part of the list of approved projects.This law and other similar laws were promulgated without recourse to the benefit of allocative efficiency of the local councils in providing such community based services and projects.The case of the above agency and that of some other agencies of the federal government has given impetus to the flagrant and inefficient involvement of the federal government in the provision of very many mini capital projects which the local council would have provided more efficiently.For instance, the 2012 federal budget, and indeed the budget of previous years, has been fraught with projects like 'Solar Energy Street Light Project', 'Provision of Solar Street Light', 'Solar Powered Street Lights', 'Solar Powered Borehole' and 'Solar Energy/Electrification.Other projects include 'Construction of Classroom', 'Motorized Borehole ','Provision Of Market Stalls', 'Provision Of Conventional Street Light', 'Building Of Urban Market Stores' 'Boreholes', 'Hand Pump Boreholes,' etc.Local councils have constitutional and financial responsibility for these functions. If local councils get as much as the 20.60 per cent of the Federation Account, which they are constitutionally entitled to, plus their internally generated revenue, they can handle such projects.The picture is even more disheartening when agencies that were created essentially for regulatory, strategic planning and coordination stoop so low as to allocate funds to such projects as listed above.An important point is the Energy Commission of Nigeria. The commission is charged with the responsibility for the strategic planning and co-ordination of national policies in the field of energy in all its ramifications. Throughout the length and breadth of the act establishing the Energy Commission of Nigeria, none of its functions involves the execution of specific projects either to provide energy or water for any part of the country.However, the commission has allocated about N10 billion of its N12 billion 2012 capital allocation to the construction of streetlights of various types in many communities round the country. This picture is replicated in other ministries like the Ministry of Lands and Housing, Ministry of Science & Technology, Ministry of Water Resources etc. Specifically, the Ministry of Lands & Housing even went as far as allocating N787 million for the construction and furnishing of Community Halls for certain communities in the country. This is a huge disappointment especially considering that the bulk of the not too adequate capital allocations for these ministries are simply misdirected.The benefits that ordinarily should accrue to citizens as a result of government's increased capital spending do not have much impact on the people as most of these projects are never executed and even when executed, they lack the capacity to cause any meaningful impact on the lives of the people.The foregoing raises a number of very disturbing concerns. The first is the glaring height of lack of coordination among the ministries and agencies within the federal government. How do you explain three ministries budgeting for the same capital items for the same communities within the same period'Secondly, one cannot help but wonder the dearth of creativity in these federal agencies. Isn't there some sort of a direction or understanding as to what policies or programmes need to receive attention per time' Alternatively, are we just looking for what to spend money on'Thirdly, there is practically no integration between capital and recurrent investment decision. Whose budgetary process will or should allocate recurrent funding to operate and maintain these projects' Will the federal government keep allocating funds annually for the maintenance of these assets' That is clearly impossible. Since these projects were not planned with the local government budgetary capacity or priorities in mind, they are almost bound to fail.The above situation is unacceptable especially at a time in the life of the country when the huge infrastructural deficit in the country calls for huge and capital-intensive public type of investment in areas like roads, electricity, health and sustainable water supply.The federal government has continued to spread its resources so thinly over many small projects that would have been more efficiently and sustainably handled by the states and local councils.The fact must be said, and it is, unfortunately, that very many components of the nation's capital appropriation simply do not have the capacity to produce the kind of results that Nigerians are expecting in terms of improved living stands and reduction in the cost of doing business.With the current structure of the nation's capital appropriation, no matter the extent to which capital spending is increased over the medium term, there is little hope for improvement in the lives of people.Current trends accessioned by globalisation and the information revolution are strengthening localisation and broadening the role of local councils in many countries through network governance at the local level. This realignment requires local councils to operate as purchasers of local services and facilitators of networks of government and beyond-government providers, gatekeepers, and overseers of state and national governments in areas of shared rule. The current moves at constitutional amendment needs to take note of these trends.The federal government needs to get out of this 'lowliness' in its perception of its functions, and begin to see the bigger picture of its responsibilities.'Ikechukwu Okoli is a Public Sector Economist and writes from the Centre for Social Justice
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