OPS, Labour hail budget return to January to December cycle

By Bimbola Oyesola and Adewale Sanyaolu

Economic experts yesterday reacted to Muhammadu Buhari’s signing of the N13.5trillion 2021 budget barely 10 days after both chambers of the National Assembly passed it into law. Buhari’s assent which came  three days after it was transmitted to him.

The National Assembly had on December 21, 2020, passed the 2021 Appropriation Bill with an aggregate expenditure of  N13,588,027,886,175 trillion.

It comprises total Capital Supplementation of N1,060,751,051,650 and total Capital Expenditure of N4,125,149,354,222, Statutory Transfer stands at N496,528,471,273; recurrent Expenditure of N5,641,970,060,680 and Gross Domestic Product, GDP growth rate of 3.00 Percent.

This was in addition  to the sum of N3,324,380,000 trillion for debt servicing.

Reacting to the budget tagged Budget of Economic recovery and resilience, Nigeria’s Organised Private Sector (OPS) and Labour movement yesterday commended the Federal Government’s effort to return to the January to December cycle.

In a separate reactions, both Labour and the OPS said the President’s signing the appropriation bill into law was a good and critical  to Nigeria’s early exit from recession in the new year. 

The Vice President of IndustriAll Global Union and former General Secretary of the National Union of Textile Garment and Tailoring Workers (NUTGTWN), Issa Aremu, said it was good that the government plan to return to the budget cycle of January to December has come to stay under the present administration.

He noted that with budget cycle discipline and implementation, Nigeria can be assured of quick exit from recession.

He however called for the patronage of locally produced products to further fast track the resuscitation of the economy.

“Government spending must be used to buy locally produced goods to revive industries and create sustainable decent jobs,” he stated.

In the same vein, the Organised Private Sector (OPS) said both the presidency and the National Assembly must be commended for the great feat.

According to the Director General of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Muda Yusuf, the President and National Assembly and the Finance Ministry must be applauded  for keeping faith with the return of budget cycle to January- December. 

The LCCI Director General said the effort should be geared towards improved budget implementation, planning and reduce uncertainty around government fiscal operations. 

“However, budgetary appropriation is one thing, budget releases is a completely different matter,” he said.

He urged government to prioritise releases for infrastructure projects and security. “These are two very critical areas that we need to urgently fix to accelerate the economic recovery process,” he stressed.

Meanwhile, the  Managing Director, Financial Derivatives Limited, Mr. Bismark Rewane, said the budget is rather small and should have been bigger in order to enable the government to reflate the economy which is in recession. He added that the focus of the economy managers should be on the effectiveness of the budget and how it would impact the citizenry.

He said no matter how robust a budget is if the effectiveness is poor, then such would be counter-productive.

He explained that Nigerians should interrogate the 2020 and see wheater  the top five capital projects actually impacted Nigerians.

Besides, how much of the capital projects for last year were actually completed?

“”The media, Nigerians, CSOs must begin to interrogate the budget effective from today to ensure that it becomes effective’’