By Chinwendu Obienyi
As reactions continue to trail the proposed 2018 budget, experts have urged the Federal Government to work on the budget cycle to sustain the nation’s economic recovery.
Speaking at the 2018 Budget Seminar organised by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in Lagos over the weekend, Head, Department of Economics, University of Lagos, Prof. Ndubuisi Nwokoma, said that for the purpose of stabilising the economy, there is need to avoid distorting the budget cycle.
“Over the years, we have distorted the budget cycle. Each time we start a new budget, before we even run about half of the budget, we are talking about proposing and approving another one and this is affecting the economy. If we really want to bridge the lap period, we then need to really maintain it and make sure that the budget actually starts in January and ends in December and we work at it to ensure we attain it,” he said.
Corroborating, former Minister of Finance, Shamsudeen Usman, said the lag time in proposing and approving the budget is much and should be addressed to ensure a strong driven economy.
“The gap between proposing and approving the budget is much. Much attention is needed to build institutions which can address the lag time. For the legislative part, they need a strong analytical budget office and on the executive side, there is need for early and constant engagement with the National Assembly,” he added.
According to him, “there is need to agree on a long term destination and as a country, we do not have agreement on certain issues but other countries like China, Malaysia agree and that is what is driving their economy. It is time Nigeria come up with institutions having proper evaluation in order to track or monitor the budget.”
For his part, Chief Executive Officer, Financial Derivatives Company Limited, Bismarck Rewane, noted that although the proposed budget was silent on subsidies and minimum wage, it was time to increase spending and to be audacious.
“The proposed 2018 budget was silent on subsidies and minimum wage for probably obvious reasons but when the parameters of the budget and realities of the economy are taken into consideration, it is clear that this is the time for economic stimulus, not just for the sake of spending, but for impactful spending,” he said.