Economy
SOME economic experts in Northwest, on Sunday, say sectoral allocation of 2023 budget has raised the hope of Nigerians regarding key areas that needed urgent attention.
The experts, who spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) however explained that such hope would only turn to reality if the amount proposed was realised, and components of the budget, implemented ‘religiously’ without any deviation.
Dr Peter Adamu, an Economist with Kaduna State University (KASU), described the budget as a “document containing wishful revenue and expenditure”.
According to Adamu, the wishes will only come true if the revenue projected is actually generated, released and judiciously used for the purpose contained in the budget document.
“From what we have seen, defence and security got the largest chunk of the proposed budget, which is justifiable considering the security challenges in the country.
“Again, 2023 is a very critical year as Nigerians prepare to go to the polls, as such, we will expect to see improvement in the security situation.
“However, this will depend on the provision of the allocated funds to security agencies to implement their plans towards improving the security situation”, he said.
He said that the health sector also recorded some improvement in terms of allocation, from the over N540 billion allocated in 2021, to about N800 billion in 2022, and doubled to about N1.7 trillion in 2023.
He anticipated that with this allocation, Nigerians would expect improvement in the health sector, considering that the country was recovering from COVID-19, and needed to prepare adequately to handle outbreak of diseases.
On education, Adamu said the sector had always lagged behind, even when it was globally accepted that investing in education and health would improve human capital development, critical for development.
He pointed out that the amount allocated to education sector over the years, had always hovered around 5.2 per cent, 6 per cent or 7 per cent of the total National Budget.
“This is far below the UNESCO benchmark of 26 per cent allocation to the education sector in the annual budget.
“We are expecting a significant allocation to the education sector to address the problem of out-of-school children, infrastructure deficit, manpower shortage and other critical facilities,” he said.
The economist lauded the Federal Government for giving attention to the agriculture sector, with key interventions by the Central Bank of Nigeria and Bank of Agriculture, leading to improvement in domestic production of rice and other grains.
He, however, said that despite improvement in output due to government funding, prices of food items had continued their upward journey.
“Government must look beyond funding to ensure that locally produced food items are available, accessible, and affordable to the majority of the people, otherwise the aim will be defeated,” he said.
Adamu also observed that government appeared not to accord the needed priority in developing infrastructure, with just paltry five per cent allocation to the sector.
“We are all witnesses to the decay in infrastructure in Nigeria – electricity, roads, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and other important facilities that should improve businesses and attract investments.
“We have not seen ICT penetrating our educational institutions as it should, in line with global standards; we still have students without access to digital facilities and internet connectivity,” he said.
On his part, Terhemba Wuam, a Professor of Economic History, KASU, explained that the extent of implementation of the budget would depend solely on availability of revenue.
He said that Federal Government’s ability or inability to bridge the funding gap would either make or mar the implementation of the 2023 budget and by extension, the hope of Nigerians.
According to him, the probability of achieving a 50 per cent implementation rate, is doubtful, especially with the current international economic crises that may scuttle the chance of financing the deficit from international financial markets and donors.
“The low revenue realised in 2022, meant that financing both the recurrent and capital expenditures, as well as debt servicing, will present huge challenges to the Buhari administration and the incoming government.
“Without expanding the revenue base and enlarging the government share of the GDP, the potential for the infrastructure and capital projects to continue to stall, remains high.
“This is especially so, considering that the government expected revenue for 2023 is only N9.73 trillion and the same government is budgeting N20.51 trillion.
“This indicates that the expected deficit financing of the budget by borrowing is N10.78 trillion, more than 50 per cent of the budget,” he analysed.
Wuam noted that the 2023 budget was President Buhari’s biggest appropriation bill with regards figures, but had been dwarfed by inflation and low value of the Naira in comparison to the Dollar.
He said that the 2023 budget was the biggest Nigeria has ever had even in Dollar terms as the N20.5 trillion approximates to $46 billion dollars at the exchange rate of N439 per dollar.
He, however, said that at the open market exchange rate, it becomes $28 billion, adding that rising inflation was another critical challenge.
“President Buhari may find it difficult to transform the country with his last budget which he will only have five months to implement.
“The size of the budget, despite what may appear to many as huge figures, is inadequate due to the developmental challenges that the country faces,” said the University Don.
In his contribution, Malam Aliyu Salis, lecturer at the Department of Economics, Bayero University Kano, called for additional funding of the Small and Medium Enterprises sector.
Another economist, Mr Muhammad Khadi, advised President Muhammad Buhari to raise the nation’s oil production level to meet the OPEC quota to ensure fiscal sustainability and reduce the proposed budget deficit.
Khadi also stressed the need to cut down the high cost of governance to reflect the current economic reality.
Dr Bashir Achida, a lecturer of Economics at the Usmanu Danfodiyo University Sokoto, observed that recurrent expenditure was far higher than capital expenditure, a situation that is not healthy for development.
“If we generally look at the expenditure, in a budget of over N20.5 trillion, we only have a capital expenditure of about N5.3 trillion.
“This is indicating that about three fourth of the budget is going into recurrent expenditure, which is a big problem because it indicate we are running a very expensive government”, he noted.
In Zamfara, the epicenter of banditry in Northwest, most respondents said the amount allocated to the security sector, gladdened their hearts.
In the words of Mr Abdulrazak Kaura, Zamfara-based Zonal Secretary of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), “the commitment expressed by the President in addressing security challenges, is commendable.”
“Zamfara is the most affected state in the country in terms of insecurity, therefore we are more concerned with provision made for security in the budget”, he added. (NAN)
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Tags: Central Bank of Nigeria Dr Peter Adamu KASU Malam Aliyu Salis Mr Muhammad Khadi OPEC UNESCO
