Professor of Economics in Lagos Business School, Bongo Adi has called on the incoming administration to rationalize the budget systems with data to back up the claims of the expenditures made by the government officials.
Adi who was on ARISE NEWS interview, said the lack of database behind the projections made by the government has led to flimsy spendings by the officials.
“The challenge in Nigeria is that the Government, not just the outgoing administration, overtime, have not been very transparent or truthful especially when it comes to a physical system. The government projections of revenues and expenditures is more or less a back of the envelope sort of calculation. There is no sort of evidence or database behind the projections that the government makes of its revenues or expenditures.
“The truth is that sometimes, they have to jack up their intended expected revenue such that they would see that the difference between expenditure and revenue in the budget would be in the physical responsibility at the stipulation of 3%. They just want to maintain that 3%.
“But the revenue projection is completely arbitrary. its something they just arrived at intuitively. The same thing with the spending. The expenditures are never tagged to real projects that are verifiable. That’s why you will go to a ministry and look at their budget. A ministry will be spending what another ministry will have as its total allocation on something flimsy like office stationery. That tells you that they first of all project their expenditure before they now begin to look for ways to spend the money.
“Let us start by first of all, rationalizing the budget system. Right now, the truth is that they are not telling us the truth. The budget that each year they pronounce is all lies. The budget is a crude one and not rational in any way.
“The first thing is that the incoming administration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu to begin by rationalizing the budgets. Let us have some data/evidence to back up the claims they make because as it is now, we do not know what the revenue is in actual terms”. He said
The professor also said the issue of fuel subsidy has to be done away with in the country. He said this is because it only rewards the rich.
“The issue of issue of if fuel subsidy should be removed and when, we have to do away with fuel subsidy. The fuel subsidy only rewards the elites, middle class and rich in Nigeria. If you go to the rural areas, you will hardly buy fuel at the pump price. The fuel subsidy that is supposed to help the poor, actually helps in intensifying their poverty and misery. So, fuel subsidy is only for the rich and has to go”. He said
Chioma Kalu
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