Aganga predicts budget failure

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24 March 2011

Aganga predicts budget failure 

Nearly four months into the new year, the minister of finance, Olusegun Aganga has warned that the 2011 budget passed by the National Assembly is too unwieldy to be implemented. In a statement that may well lead to another round of quarrel between the executive and the legislature, Mr. Aganga said the only way the federal government can implement the budget is by slicing off a chunk of the fiscal appropriation act recently approved by the lawmakers.

Mr. Aganga, who spoke from London, through his Special Assistant on Media, Okwudili Ojukwu-Enendu, said that the approved budget is too expansionary, and its high levels of deficit and borrowing makes it a risky plan.

"The 2011 budget is supposed to signal the beginning of fiscal consolidation, but we now have another expansionary budget, which is unimplementable.