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…It’s awkward to borrow to fund overhead expenditure-Rep Okechukwu
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…It’s another false narrative- Rep Tee Jay Yusuf
…We should expect a fiscal deficit-Rep Faleke
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…Reps to suspend plenary over budget defence
…NASS will never be used as a tool-House spokesman
By Emman Ovuakporie
Mixed reactions on Thursday trailed the 2021 Budget Estimates presented to the National Assembly by President Muhamnadu Buhari.
TheNewsGuru.com, TNG, reports that the N13.08trillion budget presented by the president got some knocks and was widely described as a deficit budget.
Read Reactions:
It’s not right to borrow to fund overhead expenditure-Dep Minority Leader
Reacting to the budget estimates, deputy minority leader, Rep Toby Okechukwu, PDP, Enugu said:
“It’s not right to borrow to fund overhead expenditure because it won’t generate the desired results.
Okechukwu, who is a lawyer/economist explained that”you can only borrow to fund a capital project that will generate revenue.
“Borrowing to fund what will not generate revenue is very awkward because that’s what is captured in the budget.
It’s another false narrative-Rep Tee Jay Yusuf, PDP, Kogi
Yusuf who is also an economist bared his mind on the budget which he described as another false narrative.
He explained that “once you hear a repeated narrative it now wears the toga of truth because we are borrowing to fund this budget at the same time swallowing the bitter pills of Brentwood institutions.
“If you repeatedly tell the people lies then as time goes on it now looks like the truth, you are budgetting on what you don’t have.
“Although it’s wrong to quote Hitler, I am really sorry about that but the German said when a lie is compulsory told it becomes a truth.
“This is the sane trajectory, Jonathan only earn $100 per barrel in in late 2014 but this government has earned far more than him yet they heap blames at the doorstep of PDP.
“Obasanjo earned as little as $28 per barrel and blames were not heaped on anybody.
“You are servicing debts with N3trn in a Budget of N13trn and you already have a deficit of N5trn and you expect positive response from this budgetary process.
“Well I have not really had time to go through it but I will create time to properly look at the bill.
We should expect a fiscal deficit-Rep James Faleke, Chairman Finance Cttee
Faleke in his reaction said” for me personally it is a good way to go, you remember that when he (Buhari) came on board, he started will all the ongoing projects, so it is a continuation of his decision to complete all the ongoing projects.
Weather you like it or not, it is all tax payers money and the essence of those projects initially is to improve the economy of the country.
What he (Buhari) has done by dedicating more funds to complete those projects is to continue the development of the country.
You should expect fiscal deficit because we have low revenue, the COVID affected us; apart from that, Mr President did say that the greatest problem we have is revenue generation.
You know that as Committee on Finance, we have made efforts so that more revenue come into the coffers of government.
We are going to do a comprehensive review; the MTEF that was passed, gave the committee an approval to carry out a review of all agencies as we have in this country.
To determine which ones are suppose to go out of budget and which ones can sustain themselves.
What we have seen, mainly during our review is that most agencies spend their Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) rather remitting it to the CRF.
We strongly believe that that is not good for us and we cannot allow that to continue; so definitely when you have shortfall in revenue, you need to borrow money to argument your budget.
For us, the National Assembly at least this 9th Assembly we are trying our best, and am saying that in the next phase, we are already talking to an ICT company that can give us an online monitoring where by when you make the money, as you making the money, we are seeing it online rather than doing a postmortem approach.
We’ll suspend plenary to treat budget-House spokesman
The spokesman of the House of Representatives, Rep Benjamin Kalu said the House will suspend plenary after debate on the budget for “a thorough job to be done.
He also debunked stories that the PIB Committee work will start by first quarter next year, “we are starting work immediately and this time we will pass it in record time.
Asked about the Assembly being used as a tool, Kalu said”we can’t be used as a tool because to collaborate does not mean to corroborate, we shall do a thorough job during budget defence.
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