Achieving economic growth through Budget 2017

WITH the economy of this nation passing through a serious recession for the past decade, it is right and proper for President Muhammadu Buhari to package Budget 2017 through a road map that can bring the economy back to steady growth and prosperity. The new budget is packaged to bring a new era in which we can grow abundant food for consumption and manufacture industrial needs so as to reduce imported products from other nations. There is no doubt that this nation has missed opportunities in the past when earnings from crude oil were abundantly and copiously adequate to improve and transform not only the economy but also the welfare of Nigerians. Apart from the failure of the nation to save from the high crude oil prices from the world market, we squandered our earnings on the importation of food and manufactured goods from outside the country. Although Nigeria remains one of the leading exporters of crude oil to the world market, unfortunately, the four expensive refineries built by the Federal Government have failed to meet our domestic needs.

The change which President Buhari wants, therefore, is to turn Nigeria into a productive economy as against an importer of food and manufactured goods. Therefore, the 2017 budget is intended to revolutionize agriculture and set up numerous industries to manufacture the goods consumed in this country. By doing this, Nigeria would be able to assist our Youths and others to be gainfully employed in various farming activities while the educated ones would be employed in various manufacturing industries. The 2017 budget wants the relationship between the rural and urban areas to be mutually interdependent: while the rural areas will be properly activated to produce the entire food needs of the country with some surplus for export, the urban areas will produce manufactured goods that need to be consumed by the entire country.

The 2017 budget would ensure that all food crops for which the Nigerian soils are suited for, are widely grown. While some of the revenues accruing from the sales of crude oil would be invested in the implementation of the 2017 budget, about N1.067 trillion would be sourced as loans from external sources and N1.254 trillion from domestic market. Out of a budget of N7,298 trillion, while capital investment would rake 30.7 per cent of the budget, which amounts to N2.98 trillion to be used to develop infrastructures especially rail, roads and power.

The Federal Government is committed to paying off contractors and other parties who are being owed by it for the past 10 years at a cost of over N2 trillion. As every Nigerian citizen is expected to enjoy the benefits of three budgetary provisions every year as a result of the presidential constitution being practiced in Nigeria, these are the federal, state and local governments. But because these budgets are not properly and usefully implemented, most Nigerians have not benefited from them, hence the widespread poverty ravaging the land. It would have been beneficial to this country if the budgets of the federal, state and local governments are properly coordinated and implemented.

While most states do not coordinate their budgets with that of the Federal Government, most states from the past 10 years have refused to allow local governments to assume their independent positions, hence urban roads and other infrastructure which should be provided by the local governments have been abandoned. It must also be pointed out that part of the problems confronting the nation is due to the implementation of the expensive presidential system of government imposed on this nation since 1998 by the military rulers. While the presidential system of government entails the utilisation of about 70 per cent of our budgetary provisions on recurrent purposes, with about 30 per cent for capital developments. The less expensive parliamentary system ensures the utilization of about 70 per cent of a budgetary provisions for capital projects and only about 30 per cent for recurrent matters.

The widespread conditions of insecurity ravaging the country, particularly in the Niger-Delta region where the militants have frequently destroyed crude oil and gas pipelines, have greatly diminished the gains accruing to the nation from crude oil exploitation. Such pipeline destructions have caused widespread pollution of fishing grounds and farmlands as a result of which many inhabitants of the areas are made jobless and as a result are poverty-stricken. In the North-East, the Boko Haram renegades have destroyed the numerous settlements and farmlands of the inhabitants of the areas and many of them have been killed and other displaced from their natural habitats.

A preponderant part of our annual budget is consumed in trying to find solutions to these problems. The President is therefore forced to devote a lot of money in the 2017 budget to provide security is the entire country, particularly in the Niger Delta and the Boko Haram involved North-Eastern region. Many of the malfunctioning infrastructure such as rails, roads, power and others were destroyed by the militants. Other infrastructures such as works and housing, transportation, defense, water resources, education, industries, trade and investment, the federal capital authority and health need the prompt attention of the Federal Government.

One must appreciate the interest of President Buhari in his plans to modernise our railway from Lagos – Kano to Calabar, Lagos to Ajaokuta, Itakpe, Warri, Kaduna and Abuja. If the provisions of the 2017 budget are successfully implemented, the country will begin to assume the traits of modernity. Loans can equally be arranged with some foreign contractors who may implement the contract and run them for few years to recover their investments for example, if the four huge refineries have been constructed with an arrangement for the developers to run them for few years to recover their investments, they would have carried out a better job.

If faithfully carried out, this budget is capable of getting the nation out of poverty and under development. The economy needs to be diversified, as local markets without the introduction of numerous small and medium scale industries can not support home made industries except they are imported, let us therefore emulate such countries like China, India, Indonesia etc who have incorporated export trade into their respective foreign policy so as to strengthen their economy.

• Senator Farukanmi writes in from Iju, Ondo State.