Renowned economist, Bismarck Rewane, says Nigerians are not interested in budgetary figures if the prices of basic commodities like rice, bread, and garri don’t go down.
Rewane, the Managing Director of Financial Derivatives Company Limited, made this known on Thursday during a live appearance on Channels Television’s Business Morning show.
He said, “In the end, budgetary arithmetics and mathematics in economics are of no use to anybody except when, by this time, six months’ time, if we are buying rice at N40,000 a bag rather than N60,000 a bag, if we are buying bread at N900 a big loaf instead of N1,300, which we are doing today, If we are buying garri at lower prices,
“The people are not interested in whether the financial plan is balanced or what the debt is. How does the financial plan affect their day-to-day livelihood? That is the key thing.”
At his maiden budget presentation before the National Assembly on Wednesday, President Bola Tinubu said the proposed N27.5 trillion 2024 budget will ensure micro-economic stability, poverty reduction, and greater access to social security, amongst others.
Rewane highlighted priority areas such as security, local job creation, macro-economic stability, investment environment optimization, human capital development, poverty reduction, and social security.
Giving a breakdown of the budget estimates, the President fixed recurrent non-debit expenditure at N9.92 trillion, capital expenditure at N8.73 trillion, debt service at N8.25 trillion, revenue at N18.32 trillion, new borrowings at N7.83 trillion, and deficit at N9.18 trillion.
