Under
Nigerian public finance system, the MTEF is the precursor to the budget, as
well as Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP), which details spending and revenue
projections for three years (2016-2018).
One feature
of the budget is President Buhari’s realistic projections, upon which the
budget is based. For instance, the oil benchmark price is put at $38 per
barrel, while a daily crude oil production of 2.2 million barrels was projected
in the framework.
Other
highlights include the N500 billion for the implementation of its social
security scheme for unemployed young graduates under the 2016-2017 Medium Term
Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Policy Strategy (FPS) submitted to the
National Assembly on Tuesday.
However, one
might say that the Senate is not ready for the change, which Nigerians have
been yearning for. This is because at the Senate plenary Wednesday, lawmakers
differed on the $38 per barrel benchmark projected as the price of crude oil,
the mainstay of the Nigerian economy.
The Deputy
Senate President, Chief Dr. Ike Ekweremadu,
who is the face of opposition in the Senate wants the oil price benchmark to be
pushed to between $40 and $45 per barrel, arguing that the $38 price tag was
too conservative. But we don’t need to be a first grade economist to realise
the danger in such an unrealistic assumption especially in a period when the
global economic community is feeling the impact of a regime of sustained
tumbling of crude oil price. Unlike some other oil producing countries, Nigeria
has not been able to effectively manage its oil resources and this has
continued to make the nation vulnerable to all the recent contradictions in the
international oil market.
We should
pardon Ekweremadu for this suicidal mission. Given the kind of opposition being
offered by the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) since the party was voted out of
power earlier in the year, one will not be surprised that a deputy senate
president, could urge Nigeria to take a dangerous plunge in a critical time
like this when the global oil market is at the mercy of the ongoing
international politics between Organisation
of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and non-member nations.
But we don’t
pity the All Progressives Congress-controlled Senate for Ekweremadu’s attempt
to throw spanners in the work of 2016 budget. It is nothing but the fallout of
their inability to put their house in order during the election of principal
officials of the house. One can only hope that the 2016 budget will not be held
down by unrealistic expectations, which will at the end of the day make the
budget preparation a wasteful exercise. (Thisday)
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