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The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) has said that the Medium Term Expenditure Framework 2018-2020 for the proposed N7.9 trillion 2018 budget does not meet standard and is unachievable. The lead director of the centre Eze Onyekpere said in a statement that beyond the slides presented by the Minister of Budget and National Planning Udoma Udoma at a briefing, the details of the assumptions behind the parametres have not been made public.
He said good practice demands that the consultation paper should have been in the public domain not less than two weeks before the consultation to give Nigerians the opportunity to study, understand and respond to same.
According to him the proposal to spend N7.9trillion in 2018 which is 6 percent above the 2017 appropriation, being the sum of $25.85 billion divided per capita over 180 million Nigerians, amounts to a paltry N43,888 per Nigerian. “The increase would have been a welcome development if we are very sure of the sources of its financing or if we are not banking on a good dose of deficit financing.
However, it is affirmed that Nigeria needs more than this sum to meet its pressing developmental needs, especially in the infrastructure terrain considering the paucity of investors and public private partnerships,” Onyekpere said.
