The Special Adviser to the President on Economic Matters, office of the Vice President, Dr. Tope Fasua has said Nigeria’s annual budget is one of the smallest across the globe.
Dr. Fasua said with barely 15bn dollars for over 200 million population in the 2024 budget, the country’s budget may be the smallest in the world.
Speaking at the public presentation of the book, “Budget As A Policy Instrument For Public Financial Management” in Abuja on Wednesday, Dr. Fasua said despite the disparaging of the Nigerian budget, it is the most important financial document every year.
Comparing Nigerian budget with that of South Africa, he said with just about 60 million population, South African annual budget stands at 150bn, insisting that public sector practitioners must come up with initiatives that will raise the nation’s income generation capacity.
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“If you look at our 2024 budget of 15bn dollars, if we were 200 million population, it means each citizen will be getting just 75 dollars and that is what is budgeted for health, agriculture, security, education, work, for everything, it is grossly inadequate.
“The total budget of the 36 states is 15.9trn Naira, Lagos managed to cross 2trn Naira, Ekiti is the smallest with 154bn Naira, they can’t get anywhere”, he noted.
While emphasising that the country has a large informal economy, Dr. Fasua stressed that several Nigerian billionaires don’t pay taxes.
He called for a reliable data on the country’s population as well as the distribution of wealth.
The book author, Mr. Wahab Shina Omoniyi a former Chairman of Association of National Accountants of Nigeria (ANAN) FCT, Abuja branch said fundamental knowledge of budgeting is very vital for households, small businesses and in every sector.
“When it comes to budgeting process, a lot has not been done to adequately educate the citizenry on what it’s all about despite how important it is in human society. That is why I think this document will go a long way in broadening our people’s knowledge on the ABC of budgeting”, he noted.
While stressing that lack of patriotism on the side of the nation’s resources managers has posed a huge obstacle on the judicious implementation of appropriation, Mr. Omoniyi called for the inclusion of budgeting in the secondary school curriculum to drive a robust orientation on the importance of budgeting from a younger age.
Earlier in his remarks, the President and Chairman of Council ANAN, Dr. James E Neminebor while extolling the roles of accountants in preparing and analyzing accounting statements underlined that budget is a crucial document to save enterprises and government from financial crisis.
He applauded the quality of research put in place by the author in the process of penning down his thoughts in the book.
