Adeola Oduneye
The national budget unveiled today by President Mohammadu Buhari may have drowned before it gets to the river based on the realities of the economic situation in which we find ourselves.
Director General of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mr Muda Yusuf, gave this indication tonight when he spoke on Channels Television News at 10.
According to him, the size of the budget is simply too small as it is more or less the volume of recurrent expenditure plus the amount to service debt.
The implication is that after serving the two ugly economic lords, there will be little or nothing for government to spend on development.
President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday unveiled the budget of N8.83 trillion for the 2019 fiscal year.
The figure came in the 2019 Appropriation Bill presented by the president to a joint session of the National Assembly in Abuja.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the 2019 total budget estimate is N300 billion lower than the N9.1 billion being implemented for the current fiscal year.
According to Buhari, N4.04 trillion or 50.31 per cent is earmarked for recurrent expenditure and N2.03 trillion representing 22.98 per cent earmarked for capital projects.
Other estimates are N492.36 billion for statutory transfers; N2.14 trillion for debt servicing and provision of N120 billion as sinking fund.
He explained that the sinking fund would be used to “retire maturing bonds to local contractors”.
Yusuf said, “It is a small budget compared to the size of the economy. It is not likely any budget of this size can make any significant impact. It is Just about 5 per cent of our GDP, just about; just about 25 $bn. South Africa, with a smaller economy, has a budget of over $100 bn. This is why at the end each budget cycle, there is no significant impact. The budget is too small compared to the size of the economy.”
Yusuf, however, noted that the problem was not that of the current government alone.
According to him, the structure of the economy is poor, and has been the case from one government to the other.
