Budget padding is not a crime. It is generally regarded world-wide as effort by political representatives of various national or state assemblies to help their constituents by steering projects to their states. In United states, it is called pork or earmarks or bringing home the bacon. Some members of the national and state Assemblies bring so much projects to their state that they are nicknamed “king of pork” by the media and other politicians. Some national and state assembly members have used budget padding to develop their home states. In United States, some states literally re-elect their national and state Assembly members so many times that they gain seniority, become head of national or state Assembly committees and acquire so much power that they load the budget with projects for their home state or constituencies. It is just part of democracy. The bad thing about budget padding in the United States National Assembly is that it is an unfair way to allocate projects during budget process because less powerful members of the National Assembly lacks enough clout to put the wishes of their constituent in the budget.
Members of Nigerian National and State Assemblies devised a novel way to steer projects to their states or constituency which they named constituency projects. It works this way, National and State Assembly members name projects they want for their constituents and the executive branch executives the projects. This system is good in theory because each House of Representative, Senators and state House of Assembly members get equal amount of allocation which is not based on seniority or any sort of power play. However, executive branch execution of the constituent projects is not working the way it is designed to work. It has become corruption cesspool. National Assembly members and State House of Assembly members are known to select contractors who will execute the projects and get kick back from them or some of the money allocated for those projects literally goes to the state and national representatives members who executes some of the projects and pockets the difference, some brazenly pocket all the money. It could be a good program if there is a way to have the executive branch at the state and federal level execute constituency projects without interference by the lawmakers.
What is a crime is budget insertion. Budget insertion is a process where a budget is passed by either the national or state assembly and a legislature or group of legislatures then insert some projects in the budget documents after it has been passed by the legislature. It is a crime because it was not debated and voted on by either the state or national assembly members. It is an end run of the legislative process. Budget insertion should always be treated as a very serious crime because it is a direct assault on representative democracy and separation of power. I will not be surprise if budget insertion had taken place in the last regime due to laxity, impunity and corruption that was and still prevalent in Nigeria.
However, solution to budget insertion and padding cannot be to grant the executive branch, namely the president and governors line item budgeting. Line item budgeting is a budget process where presidents or governors are granted authority to veto some items or projects they do not like in the budget. The greatest threat line item budgeting presents is that it dilutes the power of the National or state Assembly because the president or the governor can go through the budget and veto projects proposed by opposition parties or political opponents or just use the budget process to threaten and blackmail state or federal legislatures until they succumb to his or her whims. So line item budgeting is a bad idea. Budget passed by the National Assembly and state Assembly should be approved by the executive branch or vetoed without any revision so the legislatures can then go back to work and put together a budget that will be acceptable to the executive and legislative branch.