Last week,
after a protracted wait, Nigeria’s Budget for 2016 was finally signed by the
President Muhammadu Buhari; the process which began December 2015, witnessed
controversies from the very first time it was presented before the NASS, making
the budget perhaps the most popularly debated one in the history of Nigeria’s
national budgeting.
After all the
intrigues, grandstanding, shameless display of avariciousness and insensitivity
to the plight of the ordinary Nigerians, it is time for the government to put
its acts together to achieve the full implementation of the budget to mitigate
in the subsisting deplorable situation on the masses.
Looking at the budget which has an aggregate
Expenditure of about 6.06 Trillion; that is, Statutory transfers – N351.37 billion,
Debt service – N1.47 Trillion, Recurrent expenditure – N2.64 Trillion, Capital
expenditure – N1.58 trillion, Fiscal deficit – N2.20 Trillion, the first
impression is the reality that the recurrent expenditure still take the chunk
of the budget at the expense of capital expenditure, a practice that has been
for so long and has continually begged for correction.
Basically, it is time for the government; the
Executive, the Legislature, the Judiciary and the Public service to put the
inflections, the ‘paddings’ and melodrama over the budget behind and swing into
action for the achievement of the best implementation of the 2016 budget.
It is time to learn and draw lessons from the
experience and move on; Nigeria as a Nation and its leaders must be guided by
the lessons learnt to prevent mistakes of the past, the state of the nation is
really demanding urgent actions to assuage the pains of the ordinary people.
We therefore charge President Muhammadu Buhari by his
words in his speech after signing the budget that “The signing
of the budget today will trigger concerted efforts to reflate the Nigerian
economy, a key element of which is an immediate injection of N350bn into the
economy by way of capital projects. To illustrate our renewed commitment to
infrastructural development, the 2016 budget allocates over N200bn to road
construction as against a paltry N18bn allocated for same purpose in the 2015
budget”.
We
particularly note the President’s commitment to the Treasury Single Account,
TSA initiative commend his words that, “Despite the current difficulties we
will work extra-hard to achieve our revenue projections. Our revenue generating
agencies are coming under better management and are being re-oriented. The
implementation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) is expected to contribute
significantly to improving transparency over government revenues.”For us, the
TSA remain a very viable means of plugging the holes of corruption, we call on
government to implement the initiative to the fullest including fulfilling its
contractual agreements with SystemSpecs, the outfit behind the homegrown Remita
software used for the operationization of TSA in Nigeria.
We, with same
strength we charge all arms of government particularly the National Assembly to
abandon the seeming ‘clogging of the wheel’ of progress role they seem to be
playing. We specifically called on the real DISTINGUISHEDs amongst the
‘DISTINGUISHEDs’ in the Red Chambers to immediately commence the process of
sacking Senator Bukola Saraki as the Senate President and Chairman of National
Assembly for ethical and moral reasons following his baggage of corruption
which continue to get heavier on daily bases.
As we await
fuller details of the budget, we are resolved on monitoring the budget to the
‘letter and figure’, we will keep government on its toes on its promises and we
encourage Nigerians to do the same so as to shape our destiny with our own
hands.
“Name, Nail, Shame and Shun Corrupt Leaders
Anywhere, Everywhere”.
Signed
Debo Adeniran
Executive Chairman, CACOL
08037194969
No comments:
Post a Comment