‘Stop Playing Politics With National Budget’

                  The Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry has called on members of the National Assembly to stop playing politics with the nation,s budget, saying timely and realistic budget will save the nation a lot of loss.
In a statement, its President, Tony Ejikeonye said there will  always sharp disagreement between the Executive and Legislature in the area of budget benchmark, urging that theleaders should stop playing politics with the country’s budget parameters.

He said: “One of the problems we have is that the government usually sets these budget benchmarks based on political considerations.

“So when the interest of the country is paramount, realistic budget benchmarks will be set. It is high time our leaders stopped playing politics with budget parameters, there should be reduction in cost of governance at all levels.

“Government should dicentralise some of the ministries which services are needed at the rural area, but which are concentrated in the capital. Most civil servants are concentrated in the urban areas but we equally need their services in the rural areas and so it is just to spread them out.

He lamented a situation  for instance, a ministry where the bulk of its workers are supposed to be in rural areas, a lot of them are in Abuja. So we need to redeploy our work force effectively and efficiently.

Ejikeonye, said to avoid budget failure,  government should be realistic and draw up a timely budget, adding that this is one of the best ways to address the challenges in the nation’s budget formulation and implementation process. If the budget is not well structured, it will fail, he added.

The President pointed out that some of the figures that are inputted into our budgets are not realistic, pointing out that one of the major reasons for budget implementation failure is because of the over-bloated expenditure of government.

“This is where we always give government knocks. Usually, our budget is supposed to be ready long before January 1. In other economies of the world, their 2016 budget has already been passed. If you don’t have a financial plan that you will work with, it’s a key to failure.

He said the Chamber’s advice to the government is to make sure that the budget is ready on time, adding that they should always use adequate benchmarks to guage revenue inflow.