By Francis Akinnodi

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Economists have urged the Federal Government to make short and medium term plans to balance the country’s annual budgets and even achieve budget surplus.

They made the suggestion in a separate interviews with The Hope yesterday in Akure.
According to Elder Fessy Olabode, “I want to commend the Federal Government for proposing the budget of N17.1trillion. It was a step in the right direction.

“It was commendable that government is responding to suggestions that our annual budgets should be larger.

“Considering per capita, and in view of devaluation of the Naira, N17.1trillion is still not enough but it is a step towards the tight direction.

“The government should be thinking of balancing the budget at some points and have surplus budget at some points.”

He urged the Federal Government to take concrete steps to boost its revenue generation so as to reduce budget deficits.

He commended the idea of mandating revenue generating agencies to remit 50 per cent of every revenue generated to the federation account, adding that more of such initiatives would increase government’s revenue.

“More of such initiatives would gradually reduce deficit budgeting and also reduce borrowings to fund the budget. We can also look at taxation. Nigerians pay the lowest taxes, like VAT relative to most other countries. We seem to be resisting every attempt of government to generate revenue.

“People who own buildings refuse to pay property tax, those who make capital gain on asset disposal refuse to pay capital gain tax. Nigerians pay some of the lowest amounts in alcohol taxes; in cigarette taxes and things like that.

“The recently introduced tax on carbonated drinks is commendable but government should have been a bit more aggressive with it,” he said.

Also, an economic expert, Mr Tope Fasua believed that the N17.1trillion 2022 budget was realistic considering the country’s population.

He however, decried the huge deficit in the budget and the dependence on loans to fund it.

“Our debt servicing ratio is high; we are putting almost 70 per cent of our earnings on debt. This is worrisome.”, he said.

He urged government to look inwards by encouraging production and value addition to the various natural resources in the country, reduce importation and encourage consumption of locally made products.