Why budgets are poorly implemented

Except the government puts in place mechanism that will enable Nigerians have significant input into developmental projects in their local communities, the countrys annual budgets will continue to perform below expectation.The Executive Secretary, Initiative for Civic Education, Dr. Lanre Adebayo, said this on Thursday in Abuja during an interview with our correspondent.President Goodluck Jonathan had on May 27 signed into law the 2011 Appropriation Bill, which provided a budget of N4.485tn after initial disagreement with the legislature over the final figure.The fiscal document had a recurrent expenditure of N2.42tn and a capital expenditure of N1.14tn with a deficit of N1.13tn or 2.98 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product.Following the signature of the President, the implementation of the budget started off on a slow pace.The Minister of State for Finance, Dr. Yerima Ngama, confirmed this when he said that as at October, the level of implementation of the 2011 budget stood at 57.03 per cent.This is despite the fact that 66 per cent of money to fund the budget had been released to the different ministries to execute projects.But Adebayo urged the Federal Government to adhere strictly to the timeline for the budget cycle as provided by the 1999 Constitution, saying such a move would help to ensure its speedy implementation.
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