The Chairman, Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), Mr Hamman Tukur has faulted the current budgeting processes and practices in the country.

Tukur said this in his presentation at the 12th Annual Tax Conference of the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN) in Abuja on Friday.

He said that the faulty processes had contributed to the under-development of the country as well as its economic woes over the years.

Tukur said it had become necessary to review the budgeting procedures and practices in order to achieve efficiency in both the preparation and implementation of budgets for the overall accelerated development of the economy and the nation at large.

According to him, any keen observer of the budgeting practices by all tiers of government from 1999 to date will have been concerned by certain practices and procedures.

The chairman also blame the recurring disputes between the legislative and the executive arm of government in respect of preparation, approval and implementation of annual budgets on faulty processes.

Tukur noted that “the critical issue is that these practices, procedures and disputes have impacted negatively on the country’s economy.

“For too long, the abundance of natural resources in the country rather than being used to stimulate growth and development, have not only become a source of economic instability but have also resulted in mismanagement and corruption.

“Today, Nigeria cannot match its pace of growth and development with that of Botswana which has used its natural wealth to help diversify the economy and invest through prioritised budgetary sectoral allocation in health, education, agriculture and solid minerals.”

Tukur expressed worry that in spite of our penchant for well articulated budgetary ideas and the huge amount of financial outlay, the country’s budget implementation had been a record of intangible performance and waste of resources.

He said that a good budget must have realistic revenue projections, linkage of resource availability with expenditure plans, focus on project priorities and time frame, such as short term, medium term, long term and rolling.

Tukur said that the success of any budget and its subsequent implementation depended largely on adequate consultations, discussions and cooperation between the two arms of government, the executive and the legislature.

He said in Nigeria, the expected executive-legislative understanding and linkage was lacking and as a result, most Nigerians believed that the dividends of budgeting might take a long time to be felt by the citizenry.

This, he said, was due to the numerous controversies and impasse that had trailed federal and state budgets under the democratic dispensation.

Canvassing the adoption of international best practices in the budgeting processes, Tukur said some practices must be discontinued as the two arms of government must work in harmony in accordance with constitutional provisions.

He said there should be an enactment of a budget law that would clearly set the time frame for each process and stage of the budgeting process.

Such law, Tukur said, would equally define the roles of stakeholders to the budgeting process.

He said that government at all levels should endeavour to prepare budgets that were realistic, concise, achievable and implementable based on well projected revenue estimates for the fiscal year.