Some members of the senate who contributed to the debate on the 2016 budget in the red chamber on Wednesday expressed doubt over the ability of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration to implement the fiscal document based on the current economic realities. Based on their submissions, INFORMATION NIGERIA has put together the 4 reasons why they think the implementation of the 2016 budget is doubtful…
1. Some of the senators in their contributions maintained that unless there was a drastic downward review of the entire budget size, the oil benchmark and the exchange rate, the Federal Government may end up, embarking on an exercise in futility.
2. They cautioned the Buhari led administration against embarking on borrowing from local and foreign partners to fund the budget since the fiscal document did not specify any pragmatic means of servicing the loans.
3. Most of the contributors unanimously submitted that it was obvious that the Federal Government would have to increase its request for foreign loans because of the unfortunate decline in oil revenue which they put at $28 per barrel against the $38 upon which the budget benchmark was predicated.
4. Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu thinks the budget is not realistic and implementable, hence he asked the executive to consider the downward review of the budget by about 30 percent in order to make it realistic and implementable.
Do you agree???
