BY VICTORI ONU, ABUJA
THE Federal Government has decried the country’s low budget, saying that the budgets of the three tiers of government are insufficient to meet the expectation of Nigerians.
The Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation, Ben Akabueze, said this when he appeared on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Tuesday.
He stated that there was a need for governments at all levels to pursue improved revenue generation mechanisms to promote sufficient budget to meet the expectation of Nigerians and improve the nation’s Gross Domestic Product.
He said, “Our tax to GDP ratio is about the lowest in the whole world, not even talking about Africa.
“So, our budgets, not just of the federal, but of the sub-national governments, are way too small to be able to address our needs in the way that people expect.”
The DG further noted that the Nigerian economy had struggled through the past five years, since the first recession in 2016.
He added that the economic downturn occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic had made it more difficult to grow revenues.
According to him, the aggregate of the budgets of the Federal, State and Local governments has remained below expectation, as aggregate public spending, as a percentage of Nigeria’s GDP stands at 50 per cent.
He said, “When people are talking about how much we are spending on education, they are talking about how much the Federal Government is allocating, whereas education is a matter on the concurrent legislative list.
“People really don’t look in that direction and expect the Federal Government’s budget to solve every problem.”
“So, every community in the country is looking to see some provision for it in the Federal Government’s budget and it really cannot be that way,” he said.
