COMFORT EKELEME, Assist. Business Editor
BudgIT has welcomed the relatively early presentation of the 2018 budget and accepts that the economy requires significant fiscal injections to sustain and accelerate economic growth, saying that significant investment in infrastructure, education and agriculture, among others, are also important if the country’s hope of diversifying government revenue and export base is to be sustained.
BudgIT is a civic organization that applies technology to intersect citizen engagement with institutional improvement, to facilitate societal change.
According to BudgiT, improvement in tax administration, which the government hopes to push ahead in 2018 as highlighted in Mr. President’s budget presentation speech, is also welcome; saying that equally important is the need to end the cycle of poverty through some form of social intervention.
In all, the proposed 2018 budget of N8.6trillion and its guiding framework captures a majority of the objectives and philosophy that scholars, researchers and economists are likely to think about when the need for fiscal injections arise. The philosophy of the current government to spend big due to the relatively slow economic activities is welcome and clearly understood.
In a statement signed by its Communications Lead, Abiola Afolabi, BudgiT equally noted that the capital expenditure allocation of N2.42trillion was huge in nominal terms when compared to previous budgets. “Given that almost all capital expenditure allocation will be financed primarily by debts, we hope that the line items in the budget will reflect such.
“Nigeria cannot continue to borrow to buy cars, computers, retrofit office buildings at the detriment of the critical mass needed to improve the economy and end the cycle of poverty. We hope the biggest proportion of capital allocation will go into improving infrastructure, expanding access to education and health, among others.
“Also, we believe the revenue projection of N6.6tn is very optimistic, considering that the total retained revenue of the federal government, including non-oil and oil-related revenue in 2015 and 2016, was N2.8trillionn and N2.6trillion respectively.
“Federal government’s non-oil revenue in the first six months of 2017 stood at N587billion, and no significant facts suggest the figure would double or triple in approaching the new fiscal year. Oil revenue for the 2018 fiscal year is projected at N2.332trillion while the biggest bracket of government expected revenue is projected to come from the non-oil sector at N4.16trillion.
“We accept that the budget benchmark is of $45 per barrel is within the band, but there has to be excessive caution in keeping the peace of the Niger Delta, which is a crucial element in ensuring optimal production,” BudgiT said.
Overall, the firm noted that the budget proposal will need proper interrogation from all stakeholders, and analysis will be better when the line items are released to the public in a timely manner in line with the fiscal responsibility act that the president swore to uphold.
Also, given that the biggest proportion of government’s projected revenue will come from the non-oil sector, government will need to be more transparent about government finances, including releasing more information on actual recoveries from loot purportedly returned by former public officials.
The post BudgiT welcomes early presentation of 2018 budget appeared first on Champion Newspapers Limited.