Economist seeks FG, NASS collaboration on budget process
Economist seeks FG, NASS collaboration on budget process An Economist, Dr Aminu Usman has advised the Federal Government to work closely with the National Assembly to ensure speedy passage and implementation of budgets in the country. Usman said this in an interview in Abuja, while reacting to the signing of the 2019 Appropriation Bill of […]
Economist seeks FG, NASS collaboration on budget process
An Economist, Dr Aminu Usman has advised the Federal Government to work closely with the National Assembly to ensure speedy passage and implementation of budgets in the country.
Usman said this in an interview in Abuja, while reacting to the signing of the 2019 Appropriation Bill of N8.92 trillion into law.
President Muhammadu Buhari had on Monday signed the 2019 appropriation bill into law, signalling the beginning of the implementation of the 2019 fiscal calendar.
The budget was increased by the legislature by N90 billion from the N8.83 trillion presented by Buhari on Dec. 18, 2018.
The passage of the budget by the National Assembly was delayed due to 2018 Christmas and New Year break as well as the general elections.
Usman said that the President had complained about some changes in the budget, which had become recurrent issue.
“I think the Executive and National Assembly should work together to prevent delay and complain by Executive of tampering with budgets,’’ he said.
Usman, however, advised the Federal Government to work with National Assembly to return the budget cycle from January to December fiscal year.
He said that January to December fiscal year was more predictable and would help the private sector, business people and other economic players to plan better.
“The cycle will help them in planning because most economic players run a January to December fiscal year.
“Also, if the cycle runs from January to December, the direction of government would have been clearer by first quarter of the year,’’ Usman said.
According to him, returning the budget to January/December fiscal year when the operation of the current budget only commenced late is difficult to achieve.
“If they want to achieve that, they have to accelerate the budget and it has to be gradual since it will take at least three months to pass a budget.
“If the budget is presented in December, the delay will be expected. In fact, the National Assembly tried this time around by passing the budget on time.
“They didn’t waste time despite the Christmas, New Year Break and the general elections,’’ he said.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udo Udoma had said that details of the signed budget would be presented to the public on Tuesday.
Source: NAN
Photo Credit: Google
