NIGERIA AND THE 2023 BUDGET In an attempt at national planning, every year, Nigeria draws up a budget at the federal level. This budget which usually captures everything a budg
In an attempt at national planning, every year, Nigeria draws up a budget at the federal level. This budget which usually captures everything a budget should capture, taking into consideration the income and expenditure the country forecasts in the next fiscal year.
Allegations were rife that last year’s budget, and indeed many others, were scandalously padded which was essentially a practice whereby budgets were inflated by those who had become enriched in the business of milking Nigeria dry. According to him, the N8.2 trillion earmarked for recurrent expenditure in the proposed N20.51 trillion 2023 budget constituted 43 per cent of the entire budget profile. He also dished out figures showing that since 2018, Nigeria`s recurrent expenditure had been constantly rising.
It is regrettable that those who sit to draw up Nigeria`s annual budget do not seem to take into consideration the fact that Nigeria is now among the poorest countries on earth. A country where about 91 million languish beneath the poverty line cannot think itself rich even for a second.