President Jonathan to sign 2011 budget

There are strong indications that President Goodluck Jonathan will finally assent to a harmonised 2011 budget proposals in the coming weeks.Nigerian Tribune gathered that both the legislative and executive arms of government which had been seeking political solutions out of the quagmire that had characterised the budget proposals for months, had agreed to work toward an amended copy on resumption for legislative duties yesterday.PresidentJonathan initially proposed a N4.226 trillion budget in December last year but the National Assembly inflated the spending plans, passing a N4.972 trillion version in March. More than half of the planned spending in the version passed by the legislators is earmarked for recurrent expenditure, meaning the country will be spending more on keeping government running than onthe provision of new infrastructure.Confirming the latest development at the presentation of International Monetary Fund (IMF) Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa:Recovery and New Risks, in Lagos on Tuesday, Director-General of the budget office, Mr Bright Okogu, stated that but for the just concluded elections, the appropriation bill would long have been passed into law, stressing that, there had been far reaching consultations between Federal Government officials and the leadership of the National Assembly to have an agreed amended version.Okogu pointed out that the budget as passed by the National Assembly was unimplementable; adding that the deficit financing was on the high side.We have both recognised in all our preliminary discussions that there is a need to come back to a more realistic budget deficit level. The original budget plan presented by Jonathan implied a deficit of around 3.6 per cent; the final version would push the deficit back in that direction. Both sides recognised that this has to be sorted out before the new National Assembly comes into being, so we have a very tight target that we are both working towards, he said.
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