Sunday, February 14, 2016

THE BUDGET AND THE ECONOMY

The controversy surrounding the budget and the massive corruption discovered in it is something of a major concern, especially now with the present economic situation experiencing in the country following the fall in oil prices. Many have called for total withdrawal of the budget and for every ministry to go back and work on its departmental budget before compiling the whole budget, as many ministers have come to disown the whole or part of the budget concerning their ministries.

Recent cases have shown many minister are not aware of what is contained in the budget of their ministry, as was that of the minister of health, who in a Senate hearing disown the budget as it contains a lot of discrepancies and also the Minister Of information and culture, Lai Mahammed has also deny knowledge of almost N300 million budgeted for acquiring computers, as he said he does not know where that is coming from and believe the amount is too much for such a project.

The problem with the budget is that millions if not billions of Naira are going to be spent on over blotted project and in some cases nonexistent project as some corrupt party has manipulated them into the budget in a period where the country is experiencing a serious economic downturn, one it has not experience in decades and thus the country is looking to borrow to be able to finance the budget. And also the government had implanted some taxation measures on citizens to raise enough money to finance the budget.

Now the fear of most citizens is that the sacrifice Nigerians are being made to pay through taxation and the interest to be paid for borrowing to finance the budget is just going to go down the drain in corrupt practices by some few through the civil services it is the usual practice.

The government through the finance minister came out of recent to announce that they can reduce the budget deficit from money saved through the implementation of the Treasury Single Account TSA and how it has saved millions of Naira.

Now from the budget figures and the error noted so far, a proper look and professional analyses of the budget will save the country some millions of naira as the TSA did and further reduce the budget deficit and reduce the amount to be borrowed both internally and externally and in so doing saving the economy for further depreciating.

The best thing is to withdraw the budget and carry out a proper forensic audit and block loopholes prosecuting those involved in manipulating budget figures and come out with a revised budget. This will reduce cost, safe the economy and help in reducing corrupt practices in the civil service.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Book Review: Why Facebook Marketing is #1

Digital marketing involves marketing your product, services or brand online and it has replaced the old traditional type of marketing w...