The Buhari Media Organisation has described President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive that budgets of government-owned enterprises be captured in the nation’s annual budget as novel and a most welcome idea.
The group said it was a radical departure from the past system which it noted had over the years opened the budgetary system to abuses and financial misdemeanors.
A statement signed by its Chairman, Niyi Akinsiju and Secretary, Cassidy Madueke, said the move which was captured in the 2020-2022 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper would bring sanity to government operations in more ways than one.
“We have since 1999 used an amorphous budgetary system where Ministries, Departments and Agencies as well as GoEs submit separate budgets outside of the national annual budgets tabled to the National Assembly by successive Presidents.
“Many Nigerians had come to regard it as the norm, especially as the budgets of the government agencies, including the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Niger Delta Development Commission are almost always passed several months after the national budget has gone into operation.
“This even comes after the leadership of the National Assembly would have made countless demands on the heads of the agencies to turn up to defend their budgets, even to the extent of making representations to the President to intervene.
“But the Buhari administration has now put a stop to this opaque arrangement by ensuring that ten major revenue-generating GoEs and MDAs would from 2020 have their budgets enshrined in the national budget.”
The group also hailed the President for keeping to his pledge of submitting the MTEF/FSP early enough to ensure that the budget cycle returned to the January-December fiscal year.
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