Senators on Wednesday in Abuja faulted Nigeria's over
reliance on western economic theories as debate on the 2014 budget entered its
second day.
The senators said the continued application of foreign
economic theories to the Nigerian situation was not yielding the desired
result.
In his contribution, the Deputy Senate Leader, Abdul Ningi
(PDP-Bauchi), said for the Nigerian economy to yield any positive result, the
country must abandon foreign economic theories and focus on home grown ones.
``Our economy is a third world economy, we cannot continue
to bring western economic theories to address our peculiar situation and expect
positive results,’’ Ningi said.
According to him, Nigeria must emulate other emerging
economies that have replaced all the prescriptive western economic theories
with home grown approaches that engender economic growth and prosperity.
Sen. Danjuma Goje (PDP- Gombe) also expressed the need for
Nigerian budgets to be tailored to address the country's peculiar problems and not
to satisfy western ways of assessing budget performance.
Goje decried lack of provision in the budget to address the
issues of armed robbery, kidnapping and other vices, adding that it was the
government’s responsibility to protect the citizens.
On his part, Sen. Smart Adeyemi (PDP-Kogi), said that
Nigeria's economic needs were quite peculiar and unique; adding that adopting
the western approach to addressing them would not be effective.
``The Minister of Finance must be told to review her World
Bank/IMF economic policy because it cannot fit into our own circumstances; it
is not working in our best interest,’’ Adeyemi said.
Sen. Ita Enang (PDP-Akwa Ibom) decried what he described as
fiscal rascality of certain federal institutions due to failure of the Finance
Ministry to enforce the Fiscal Responsibility Act.
Enang said that the institutions were acting independently,
generating revenue and disbursing same without recourse to the National
Assembly for necessary appropriation.
For Sen. Hope Uzodinma (PDP-Imo), ``the 2014 budget is very
reassuring and refreshing as the government's proposal is consistent with the
transformation agenda’’.
Uzodinma said that the budget should be forwarded to the
relevant committees for further legislative work.
Also contributing, Sen. Ayogu Eze (PDP) said that the budget
was a well focused one, directed at creating jobs.
He, however, noted that the problem of budgets in the
country was that they had failed to match revenue projections to actual revenue
generated.
``This year, all energies should be geared toward generating
enough revenue to create more jobs just as the private sector should be
empowered to generate jobs.
``I urge my colleagues not to waste too much time blowing
grammar here and move into the field to ensure the budget is fully
implemented,’’ Ayogu said.
Sen. Kabiru Gaya (APC-Kano) decried the fact that budget
implementation in the country over the years had never risen above 50 per cent.
According to him, for Nigerians to benefit from any budget,
the capital expenditure must be higher than the recurrent expenditure.
He said that the only reason Rivers Assembly was able to
pass its budget within one hour was because the capital expenditure was higher
than the recurrent expenditure.
For Sen. Olushola Adeyeye (APC-Osun), there was so much
confusion in the financial management of the country which had made it
difficult to ascertain the true state of the economy.
He said government agencies were providing conflicting
details of finances and that the budget had shown a betrayal of the citizens.
``APC and PDP must come together and terminate the financial
rascality and criminality being enjoyed by politicians to enable Nigeria to
prosper,’’ Adeyeye said
Adeyeye expressed regrets that the minister of finance who
had championed Nigeria's debt repayment was the same person now leading the
country into more debts.
Sen. Olufemi Lanlehin (APC - Oyo) said that the budget should
be returned to the executive to include the budget estimates of revenue
yielding agencies such as NNPC, CBN, NPA and others not captured.
To view or download break down of 2014 Budget follow this link
View Citizens' Guide to the 2014 Federal Budget link
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