Rewane, the Managing Director of Financial Derivatives Company Limited, made this known on Thursday during an interview on Channels TV.
Renowned economist, Bismarck Rewane, has stated that Nigerians are not interested in budgetary figures rolled out by the President Bola Tinubu-led government 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 an interview on Channels TV.
He said, “In the end, budgetary arithmetics, budgetary mathematics in economics is 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 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 budget is balanced and what the debt is. How does it (the budget) affect their day-to-day livelihood? That is the key thing.”
SaharaReporters on Monday reported that President Bola Tinubu’s government approved N27trillion as the 2024 appropriation for the country.
The Federal Executive Council (FEC) gave the approval on Monday at the weekly executive meeting presided over by the president.
The 2024 appropriation would be the first yearly budget presented by Tinubu a few weeks after he presented the 2023 supplementary budget before the National Assembly.
The 2023 supplementary budget worth N2.17 trillion was passed by the Senate after the report of the harmonised sittings of the Senate and the House of Representatives was submitted by Senator Solomon Adeola, popularly known as Yayi, the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee amid huge debt profile.
SaharaReporters earlier reported that the Senate had approved $7.8 billion and another €100 million borrowing plan as requested by President Tinubu.
The president made the request through a letter to the Senate, read during the plenary by the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio.
In August, the National Assembly approved President Tinubu’s request for over $800 million loan to finance the National Social Safety Network Programme.
At his maiden budget presentation before the National Assembly on Wednesday, President Bola Tinubu said the proposed N27.5trn 2024 budget will ensure micro-economic stability, poverty reduction, and greater access to social security, amongst others.
He 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 N9.92trn, capital expenditure at N8.73trn, debt service at N8.25trn, revenue at N18.32trn, new borrowings at N7.83trn and deficit at N9.18trn.
Rewane, analysing the budget proposal, said in the final analysis, the people are not interested in figures but want to feel the impact of the government’s economic policies as many are under pressure.
“And as you know, prices are up and people are under tremendous pressure,” he said, adding that the rate of poverty in the country is driving people mad.