Why Nigerians are not feeling impact of budget – Expert

Ifeanyi Onuba, Abuja

The structure of Nigeria’s budget whereby huge amount of money is allocated to recurrent spending and debt servicing have been identified as major reasons why Nigerians are not feeling the impact of budgetary spending.

The Chief Executive Officer, RTC Advisory Services Ltd, Mr Opeyemi Agbaje, said this during a presentation in Abuja at a media parley organised by First City Monument Bank Plc.

Agbaje in his paper titled, ‘’The Nigerian Economy and Financial Sector in 2018,”said the structure of government spending as contained in the budget was such that only  few people working in government circles benefited directly from it while many Nigerians were left in suffering.

He lamented that despite the fact that about 70 per cent of the budget was allocated for recurrent spending, the less than 30 per cent that was allocated for capital projects which would have impacted on the people were not adequately funded.

For instance, he said out of the N2.2tn allocated for capital spending in the 2017 fiscal period, only N1.3tn was released by the government.

Agbaje, a one-time Chairman of Convention on Business Integrity, explained that the inability to fund capital projects could not guarantee development for a country like Nigeria with huge infrastructure needs.

He said, “Nigeria’s budget as currently structure may not affect the citizens quickly as expected unless its focus is changed from heavy recurrent expenditure to capital.

“Unless we reverse our budget culture, poverty will continue to grow. When you spend 80 per  ent of revenue on limited number of people you will get the sort of outcome we are currently grappling with.

“Unless you reverse the trend of your priority by spending 80 per cent on capital projects and spend less on recurrent items, there would be massive poverty.”

He explained that Nigeria’s  economy was still vulnerable with the fragile growth driven by  increased oil production and rising crude oil Price.

 

source http://punchng.com/why-nigerians-are-not-feeling-impact-of-budget-expert/