Financial Experts Decry Budget Delay …Say It Threatens ERG Implementation

Two financial experts in Lagos State have said that the delay in passing the 2018 Budget  could undermine the effective implementation of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP).
The experts, who spoke with The Tide source, said that the delay in the passage. by the National Assembly, could hinder implementation of projects critical to economic diversification.
Head of Banking and Finance Department, Nasarawa State University, Keffi, Dr Uche Uwaleke, said that the Budget of Consolidation was developed in line with the Federal Government’s ERGP designed to make the economy more diversified.
According to him, the delay rubbishes budget assumptions and renders unrealistic, targets such as the gross domestic product growth of 3.5 per cent.
He said that planned investments in agriculture and infrastructure, in particular, could be hampered, adding that the delay could also hinder job creation.
“This development does not augur well for the stock market, as share prices of firms in the agriculture sector, industrial goods sector and construction sector will be worst hit,” Uwaleke said.
According to Uwaleke, the delay can also adversely affect timely payment of contractors and increase the chances of non-performing loans in banks which will negatively affect their share values.
“If the delay drags on for too long, it can heighten uncertainty in the market.
“It has the potential to scare away foreign investors whose presence is being felt now due to the current investors’ confidence in the country’s economy following recovery in crude oil price,” Uwaleke said.
Professor of Economics, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State, Sheriffdeen Tella, said that the delay in passing the budget, in spite its early submission by the executive, exposed the “lackadaisical attitude of our leaders toward national issues’’.
The professor of economics said that the legislature indicated from the onset that it was not in hurry to consider and approve the budget.
“From December 2017, those who are directly in charge of the budget consideration had told the public that serious work would not commence until 2018.
“The position was not helped by the bureaucratic personnel who did not appear before the National Assembly Committee as and when scheduled,’’ he said.
He said that early passage of the budget would positively impact on the economy just coming out of recession and needed injection of funds to accelerate the recovery process.
Tella said that uncertainty of the past weeks in the stock market might continue until the passage of the budget.
He noted that activities in the capital market were often influenced by fiscal policies and activities of government and the Central Bank of Nigeria.
President Muhammadu Buhari had on November 7, 2017, presented the 2018 Budget of N8.612 trillion to a joint session of the National Assembly.
Buhari said at the presentation that the budget would drive rapid economic recovery.