2023 Budget; Unrealistic – Senator Abba Moro Says | READ WHY
The Senator representing Benue South, Senator Patrick Abba Moro has said that the 2023 Budget is unrealistic due to issues in National economy, insecurity and very high rate of poverty.
Senator Moro made this assertion while speaking with journalists concerning the just presented budget by the President on Thursday.
He suggests that incremental budgeting should be adopted, “a budget that is prepared by taking the current period’s budget or actual performance and using it as a base and then adjusting it by incremental amounts.
“This is typically accomplished by taking the prior year’s budget and adjusting for some increase in costs.
“It is common practice to create incremental budgets using the rate of inflation as a guide for the adjustment factor when creating incremental budgets”
Recall that President Muhammadu Buhari recently presented a budget proposal of N20.51trillion for 2023 fiscal year to the joint session of the National Assembly
Tagged Budget of Fiscal Sustainability and Transition, it is about N750billion higher than N19.76trillion earlier proposed in the 2023-2025 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper, MTEF/FSP and also higher than N17.23 trillion aggregate expenditure for 2022 by N3.28trillion.
President Buhari, however, made a lower projection of budget deficit by pegging it at N10.78trillion against N11.30trillion proposed in the MTEF/FSP documents.
The N10.78trillion deficit as explained by the President will be funded by projected N8.80trillion new borrowings and proceeds from privatized assets and others.
Moro explained that there is no how the President will propose a budget of N20.51trillion in 2023, when we had a budget of 17 trillion in 2022 and the very vital components has not been financed and no work has taken place in those very critical area.
“we think that we must change our strategies, all the senators are complaining about bad roads. we think generally that the system we are operating is not realistic”. he said.
Moro therefore suggested that incremental system should be adopted to improve the economy.
Speaking further about devastating effects of flood, Sen Moro posits that federal government should take proactive actions. He suggests that there should be dams built exclusively to trap water that is always overflowing during rainy season.
