The senator representing Ekiti South, Biodun Olujimi on Thursday, January 21 said that the 2016 budget proposal submitted by President Muhammadu Buhari is not a budget of change.

While making her contribution at the 2016 budget consideration at the senate, Olujimi said the government needs to go back to make adjustments on the budget.

She said there is need for introspection and what the country needs is to have a solid economic team who have the interest of Nigeria at heart so that they can look carefully at this budget and see where the people are most affected.

“I believe Nigeria needs a better budget, there is a need for change and the change is not in this budget yet. We will run with this budget but there are so much more to be done.

“This budget has a serious deficiency. There is need for introspection, for solid economic team to look at this budget to cushion the effect for our people.

“Our people need palliative and effect of the oncoming depreciation,” she said.

Olujimi said that the criticisms by the lawmakers should be taken to strenghthen the system and ensure a better Nigerian. She also said that the chaos in the country started with the past administration.

She complained that the expenditure and deficit are the major problems and the clog in the wheel of progress in this budget because there is room for borrowing but none for paying back the debts.

She added that Nigerians are suffering from financial problems in which the budget will multiply the present existing problems.

“Meanwhile most of the blames that are being heaped on this side are really on the other side because the people who created the chaos are already on the other side.

“Right now we have a deficit of 11 dollars on every barrel of oil we sell and in the budget we have a deficit of 2.2 trillion naira.That 11 dollar deficit will take that deficit to 2.5 trillion naira or 2.6 trillion naira, that is not the serious problem, the problem is if we need to borrow to manage this 2.6 trillion naira, it means we will be borrowing 500 million naira every day of this year. Every day of this year this government will look for 500 million naira to borrow.

“To crown it all there is nothing in this budget that suggests repayment for this debt. Every other thing in the budget is quiet it is only expenditure, nothing has been set aside to ensure that we pay back our loan.

” What it means is that we are likely to begin to beg for people to help us with our debt which we must never get back to. A country that borrows and does not plan to pay back has not done enough work at all and what we will be doing by this is that we will be giving the people with one hand and we will be taking from them from both hands because the people we borrow from will ask for their money back and we have only four years for this country.

“If they borrow 500 million naira a day and cannot pay it in one year, it rolls over to the next year and in four years you find we are in deficit of almost 6 trillion naira which we must never get to,” she said.

Olujimi went ahead to argue that in the last six months, there has been too many policy changes in this system.

During her debate, she said the capital expenditure has increased while the inflow of funds has decreased causing a serious deficiency.

She went ahead to say that the country needs a strong economic team who have the interests on the country to look at the budget and make decisions.

Olujimi also said that although the country’s economy needs to be diversified, Nigeia also needs to depend on oil for a while. Naij.com recalls that the Senate last Thursday, January 14 rejected the second version of the 2016 budget which was replacement of the original version submitted to it by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The Senate President, Bukola Saraki, had disclosed that they had two versions of the budget. He said the presidential liaison officer, Ita Enang, printed a different version from the copy laid by President Buhari on Tuesday, December 22, before a joint session of the National Assembly.

Source: Naij