BEFORE BUDGET 2017
On Wednesday, that is two days hence, President Buhari has promised to present budget 2017 to the National Assembly, just a day short of when he presented 2016 budget last year.
Before he does, perhaps it is worth putting on record some memories from year 2016 to perhaps get the president to provide answers to offshoot questions in his budget speech
In the course of 2016 Nigerians were told that the government borrowed N36m to celebrate democracy day and found it difficult to pay back.
They were also told that government has had to borrow to pay civil service and political appointees wage bill and of course, entitlements of elected politicians. That in this month of December had to unilaterally link deductions from staff pay to new base figures to deduct more from take home.
Also that within the year Nigeria got second war plane gifts in addition to old war ships earlier got to arm the army and other security agencies risking their precious lives to keep Nigeria one by, inevitably, wasting the lives of those who threaten the existence of Nigeria by expressing discontent.
We know too that much that is done for internally displaced persons now in the north east is with strong support from foreign friends and local deep pockets.
Also that the present day in roads into agriculture is with strong financial support from the Central Bank of Nigeria. That so much is being borrowed to or planned to be borrowed to fund the governments social intervention programme, infrastructural development and household consumption stimulation.
We know all these courtesy of different pronouncements by different agencies and individuals since Buhari took over.
No sweat but pardon these ignorant questions that follow.
What exactly did Nigeria earn in 2016 and from what activity? On what was this amount spent? Was the defacto underlining priority set by Mr President alone or it was done with the involvement of the civil servants and laid down civil service rules? Indeed, who monitored how such earnings were spent?
One hears so much that this and that fund was released to solve particular problems like football funding crossroads that again one wonders if there was budget for such emergencies or it was just a case of robbing one need to erase embarassing memories and bad image from another?
Hope as budget 2017 aims to get Nigeria out of recession the basis is not just to stimulate demand BEFORE there is recovery in local content, local production particularly more job creating manufacturing and value addition?
Hope it is realised too that the best Nigeria can reap from current times is the realisation that economic boom on the back of demand and increased income (from crude oil for example) is never the right boom. It is too dependent on foreign short term inflow and volatile forex earnings.
For exanple, it may make sense to keep Nigerian interest rate high to attract foreign inflow but unfortunately what you will get are short term funds that could help break temporary forex strangleholds but not long term funds for long term investment.
Yet it is long term investment that holds the real key out of today's recession.
It is also a known fact that politicians have a tendency to push professional civil servants and the rule book aside once they assume office with their retinue of political appointees. Hope this has not occurred this time around?
Before he does, perhaps it is worth putting on record some memories from year 2016 to perhaps get the president to provide answers to offshoot questions in his budget speech
In the course of 2016 Nigerians were told that the government borrowed N36m to celebrate democracy day and found it difficult to pay back.
They were also told that government has had to borrow to pay civil service and political appointees wage bill and of course, entitlements of elected politicians. That in this month of December had to unilaterally link deductions from staff pay to new base figures to deduct more from take home.
Also that within the year Nigeria got second war plane gifts in addition to old war ships earlier got to arm the army and other security agencies risking their precious lives to keep Nigeria one by, inevitably, wasting the lives of those who threaten the existence of Nigeria by expressing discontent.
We know too that much that is done for internally displaced persons now in the north east is with strong support from foreign friends and local deep pockets.
Also that the present day in roads into agriculture is with strong financial support from the Central Bank of Nigeria. That so much is being borrowed to or planned to be borrowed to fund the governments social intervention programme, infrastructural development and household consumption stimulation.
We know all these courtesy of different pronouncements by different agencies and individuals since Buhari took over.
No sweat but pardon these ignorant questions that follow.
What exactly did Nigeria earn in 2016 and from what activity? On what was this amount spent? Was the defacto underlining priority set by Mr President alone or it was done with the involvement of the civil servants and laid down civil service rules? Indeed, who monitored how such earnings were spent?
One hears so much that this and that fund was released to solve particular problems like football funding crossroads that again one wonders if there was budget for such emergencies or it was just a case of robbing one need to erase embarassing memories and bad image from another?
Hope as budget 2017 aims to get Nigeria out of recession the basis is not just to stimulate demand BEFORE there is recovery in local content, local production particularly more job creating manufacturing and value addition?
Hope it is realised too that the best Nigeria can reap from current times is the realisation that economic boom on the back of demand and increased income (from crude oil for example) is never the right boom. It is too dependent on foreign short term inflow and volatile forex earnings.
For exanple, it may make sense to keep Nigerian interest rate high to attract foreign inflow but unfortunately what you will get are short term funds that could help break temporary forex strangleholds but not long term funds for long term investment.
Yet it is long term investment that holds the real key out of today's recession.
It is also a known fact that politicians have a tendency to push professional civil servants and the rule book aside once they assume office with their retinue of political appointees. Hope this has not occurred this time around?
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