Stakeholders in the nation’s financial market have expressed displeasure over the delay in the passage of the 2018 budget.
The President, Nigeria Employers Consultative Association, Mr. Larry Ettah, said the development was capable of dragging the nation into a state of inertia.
Ettah said it appeared to have become the tradition in this democratic dispensation for the budget to be unduly delayed, thereby plunging the economy into a state of inertia, particularly in the first quarter of the year.
He noted that in December 2016, President Muhammadu Buhari presented the 2017 Appropriation Bill to the National Assembly, but the lawmakers did not pass the bill until May 11, 2017, almost six months after it was presented.
“We recollect that President Muhammadu Buhari presented the 2018 budget to our Legislators in November, 2017,” he said.
He, therefore, implored the two arms of government to mutually agree on a time frame that would ensure that the budget for the following year is passed into law before the end of every current fiscal year.
On his own part, President, Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, Dr. Frank Jacob, described the delay as regrettable, given the expectations that it was designed to address the massive infrastructural deficiency and gap in the country.
The MAN president said, “We were optimistic that they were going to start off immediately with the implementation. Unfortunately, the politicians and their ways of handling issues are adding to the delay, and I don’t know what is going on.
“The appropriation has been in favour of the manufacturing sector and the private sector, because we have been clamouring for the development of infrastructure. We are hopeful that it will soon be approved and the implementation will follow, because any further delay would make a mess of the whole thing.”
An economist at the Nassarawa State University, Prof. Uche Uwaleke, said it was worrisome that the National Assembly was not in a hurry to pass this year’s appropriation bill, adding that three months after the presentation of the N8.612 trillion Budget proposals, Nigerians were still awaiting the nod from the lawmakers for the President to sign it into law.
