The 2014 federal budget faces the risk of abysmal poor implementation on account of delays in the passage of the appropriation bill as well as anticipated election spending by politicians, analysts have said.
The government has branded this year’s budget as one for “job creation and inclusive growth” but analysts say it will likely not achieve much like most previous ones.
A financial analyst, Tunji Awonusi, expressed worries that the already delayed 2014 budget is unfortunately coming in a year that politicians, going by past records, would likely divert some of the monies for election, consequently, harming the original intentions of the budget.
One other concern by Awonusi is the fact that the budget is still dragging at the National Assembly by the third month of the year when implementation ought to have taken off in full swing.
Federal lawmakers are resuming plenary today after a two weeks break that allowed their committees to meet with the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) on the budget. The budget was laid on December 19, 2013 by the coordinating minister for the economy and finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, after two failed attempts by the presidency to present the budget.
With the way things are headed the budget may not come out until May, like the previous fiscal instruments that came after the first quarter of the year they were meant for. The delay in the passage of the budget always leads to poor implementation.
Awonusi regretted that despite all the talks, government has not been able to get the budgetary process right to the extent that implementation, especially for the capital expenditure, appears impossible to start in record time for better delivery to the citizens.
“Delays in budget are now a reoccurrence and to my mind the budget of this year is actually not going to be one that the government is ready to implement.
“It is going to be a budget of politics and it has already started. All that the politicians are trying to do is to find something for themselves in the budget so that they can have enough money to go back and run election”, Awonusi told BusinessDay.
But more worrisome is the fact that the whole situation will likely see a slow down in investment inflows as investors will be forced to hold back and watch how the whole situation plays out.
The financial analyst confirmed that a lot of investors and particularly those he advised on investments in Nigeria are just waiting.
“They really want to see what the government is thinking on the budget and what the year is going to look like, particularly because next year is election.
“For me, I will not put my money, I will rather wait and see how things turn out next year, and that is what a lot of investors are going to be looking at. So we might not get a lot of foreign direct investments this year”, he added.
For Wale Abe, executive secretary, Financial Markets Dealers Association (FMDA), the challenge is that the implementation of capital side of the budget which ought to have benefitted Nigerians will be delayed as usual.
He said the delay raises a lot of concerns since majority of those capital projects are time-sensitive and considering the fact that 2014 is an election year.
ONYINYE NWACHUKWU & TEDDY NWANUNOBI, Abuja
