May 19, 2018

African Heritage Institution (Afri-Heritage), a socio-economic and political analytical institution, has urged the Federal government to improve the low level of implementation of budgets to benefit the citizenry.

The Executive Director of Afri-Heritage, Prof. Ufo Okeke-Uzodike, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Enugu on Saturday that Nigerians expected more from the annual budgets.

He said many Nigerians were not happy with the low implementation of budgets that have been in trillions of naira consecutively for six years.

NAN reports that the Senate on Wednesday passed the 2018 Appropriation Bill of N9.1 trillion, adjusted upward by N500 billion to N9.1 trillion, six months after it was presented to the National Assembly.

Okeke-Uzodike noted that it was not all about a bogus budget; but the impact the budget would make on the lives of Nigerians.

“The issue all these years remains how accessible are the funds in the budget to those they are meant for.

“How can government ministries, commissions, departments and agencies be given what is due to them to make the impact of the budget felt by the people?” he said.

According to him, before the budget is signed into law by the President, it is pertinent that Nigerians know how the 2017 budget fared.

“Till now, we don’t know how the budgets of 2016 and 2017 performed. All the inconsistencies in monitoring and shortfalls in implementation have made it difficult to analysis the Nigerian economy.

“So, as it is now the total budget framework of the country for some years now is dysfunctional from an analytical point of view,” he said.

The executive director noted that the budget process and system needed to be reviewed to make the people feel its impact.

“Implementation and clear-cut monitoring remain the keys for a successful and people-oriented budget,” he added.