Nigeria: Why Jonathan is Yet to Sign Budget

Daily Independent (Lagos)

3 May 2011

Nigeria: Why Jonathan is Yet to Sign Budget

Abuja and Lagos — Five months into the fiscal year, the government on Tuesday restated its objection to the 2011 Appropriation Bill by the National Assembly (NASS).

Bright Okogwu, the Director-General of the Budget Office based in the Presidency, lamented that the impasse has lingered for long because, unlike the original document with a deficit of 3.0 per cent of Gross Domestic Products (GDP), the legislators passed a N4.97 trillion budget, with the deficit being 4.0 per cent of GDP.

Okogwu spoke in Lagos at the launch of the International Monetary Fund (IMF's) semi-annual sub-Saharan African Regional Economic Outlook.

"The Minister (of Finance, Olusegun Aganga), has said it is not implementable. We want to make it more implementable," he said,

Okogwu added that the Presidency and the NASS have been discussing for some time, and both recognise the need to come back to a more realistic budget deficit level, because the Fiscal Responsibility Act stipulates that the budget should not exceed two per cent of GDP deficit.