Business
Experts Express Disappointment Over Budget Implementation
Experts in the capital market have expressed their disappointment over the implementation of the nation’s 2009 budget.
The Minister of State for Finance, Mr Remi Babalola, recently revealed that the federal government had only released about 50 per cent of the funds for capital projects in the 2009 budget.
The Managing Director of Dependable Securities Limited, Mr Chineye Anyanwu, pointed out that the 2009 budget had not been full implemented.
He urged the government to fully revive the power sector of the economy, saying that by the time the sector is revived, the nation will recover from its economy crisis. He pleaded with the government to make reviving of the power sector its priority in the 2010 budget.
Speaking on the 2009 budget, Mr Andrew Tsaku, a broker with Alangrange Securities Limited, said there was no reason why the budget should not have been thoroughly implemented. He added that Nigerians need to know why the government did not achieve 100 per cent performance.
Talking about infrastructure in the country is in a dilapidated situation, particularly the power sector, which the government promised would attain 6,000 maga watts by December and nobody is coming out to let us know the actual situation in the power sector. We have heard 3,000 or 4,000 and even the actualisation of that is not certain this year,” he said.
Tsaku noted that the state of affair in the nation at present is not the reflection of the true capacity of Nigeria and agreed that there is a lot to be done by the government.
A broker also pointed out that due to the global economic financial crisis, which affected the Nigerian Economy, and with the country being a mono economic nation, coupled with the Niger Delta crisis the country had been badly affected.
He thus called on the government to focus largely on diversification of the nation’s economy from the current single commodity economy.