By Olabisi Olaleye and Charles Nwaoguji,
When passed into law, a cross section of Nigerians have urged President Muhammudu Buhari to implement the N7.3 trillion 2017 budget proposal to the letter with a view to alleviating the poverty ravaging the country.
According to the the Director General of Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry(LCCI), Mr. Muda Yusuf, the National Assembly should expedite action on the budget in order to tackle the recession.
The LCCI boss noted that approving the budget within the appropriate time would enable the executive to disburse funds to critical sectors of the economy.
However, he noted that the budget does not address the foreign exchange scarcity which is critical to manufacturing sector.
Another important aspect which the government should look into is the issue of trade policy and international relation which was not highlighted in the budget.
“Investing in key infrastructure and massively in agriculture and its value chain will improve the status of the economy. This will help to address unemployment and other related problems,’’ he added.
However, stakeholders in the ICT sector have faulted the failure of the federal government to give priority to the sector in its 2017 budget despite its massive contribution to the economy.
The questions on the lips on every stakeholder are, does the communications ministry have budget? I f it has ,why is the presidency not playing it up?
According to them , the country is moving towards the digital space and the fact that it has contributed hugely to the economy should have been the real reason to play. it up.
Recently, the National Bureau of Statistics indicated that the sector contributed 11.98 per cent to the GDP in first quarter 2016. ICT communications, minister, expressedconfidence that ICT would contribute up to 20 per cent to Nigeria’s GDP by 2020.
Analyst, Wale Erinoso, said, he was worried that the Federal Government had not featured ICT as an important sector in its 2017 budget. “ICT is not included, then it calls for worry because this is a government that wants to achieve 30 per cent broadband by 2018, which is just three years away,” said Erinoso.
“I believe that ICT should be played up because it is the future of this economy after our over dependence on oil,” he added. On the other hand, Steve Uboh, another stakeholder disclosed that the ICT space should not be in hurry because budget comes in a huge volume and the one submitted is an abridged version .
“Maybe, the ministries the presidency considers to be important are the ones played up”. in the budget summary,”.
Also speaking,a source in the presidency explained that it was a summary to the budget and a sectoral allocation that would be broken down by Monday. “Every ministry is well represented in budget.That was only a summary to the budget.”