The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), a Civil Society Organization (CSO) says the delay in the passage of the 2018 Budget by the National Assembly was negatively impacting on the nation's economy. The Lead Director of CSJ, Mr. Eze Onyekpere stated this on Tuesday in Abuja while speaking to Vanguard.
He explained that the impact was being felt negatively as the budget was required by public and private sector stakeholders to plan and manage their economic activities.
“The delay compounds the already parlous economic situation and shows a country that is afloat and without a focused leadership at both the executive and legislative levels.”
Also speaking, the Head of Research, BudgIT Nigeria, Atiuku Samuel lamented that the absence of budget calendar in the country was responsible for the challenge. He blamed the delay in the passage of the budget on lack of coordination and planning. He said during the budget formation phase, the executive and legislators and other stakeholders should have been consulted and actions point agreed on to avoid such delay.
“However, not much is done by the executive to carry the legislators along. As such, issues on the budget framework, lack of details, frictions between the legislators and executive and how the legislators process information differs from how the executive process information.
“In all, the lack of coordination cumulates into a bigger issue that has delayed the passage of the budget among other issues,” he said.
The 2018 budget which was put at N8.612 trillion and presented to the National Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari on Nov. 7, 2017, is still before the lawmakers.
