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| Prof. Pat Utomi |
Prof. Pat Utomi on Wednesday blamed the administration of
President Muhammadu Buhari for the economic downturn in the country.
He described those attributing the recession to the fall in
crude oil price as bad managers.
He said the Buhari government should have foreseen and
pre-empted the situation if it had been futuristic in budget planning and
management of resources.
Utomi, who blamed the current situation in the country on
lack of planning and foresight, said the preparation of a good national budget
could have saved the situation.
Utomi spoke as the guest lecturer at the Dr. Emmanuel
Egbogah Budget Roundtable organised by the Business School of the Nnamdi
Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State.
His lecture was titled: ‘Budget Processes in Nigeria:
Challenges and Implications for National Development’.
Utomi said a good budget should contain what the people
would want and envisage the implications of future economic changes and
challenges.
He said “Our major problem is that we lack planning and
budget discipline. In beginning of a budgeting process, it must be matched with
where the people are going; but beyond revenue and expenditure, the budget has
to do with discipline and execution.
“Those blaming the fall in oil price are just bad managers.
That was not the cause of this recession.”
Lamenting the prevailing backwardness in the country, Utomi
stated that the sad situation was basically thrown up by the events of 1966
when a gang of military boys hijacked the leadership of the country.
He said the same characters had remained in power since then
in different guises.
In his keynote address, the Deputy Chairman, House of
Representatives Committee on Appropriations, Mr. Chris Azubuogu, listed factors
hindering the actualisation of the national budget to include poor funding,
lopsided budgeting, deficit budgeting and high domestic debt profile, which he
noted was in trillions of naira.
The Director of the business school, Prof. Austin Nonyelu,
said the conference was necessitated by the challenges bedevilling the
country’s budget process at all levels of governance, which he noted had
impacted negatively on service delivery.
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