The Centre for Social Justice CSJ, a civil society organisation, has said that ot will be practically impossible to achieve 15 per cent inflation rate as projected in the 2025 budget now before the National Assembly.
The group in its review of the 2024 budget and recommendations for the 2025 budget said it will be more realistic to project inflation rate at 25 per cent.
The report, signed by the Lead Director of the centre, Barr. Eze Onyekpere, also said the exchange rate should be projected to not more than N1400 to $1 as against the N1,500/$1 as contained in the budget proposal.
It also recommended that oil production of 1.9mbpd and a benchmark price of not more than $70 may be more realistic and feasible rather than the 2.06mbpd and $75 per barrel proposed in the budget.
CSJ urged the government to step up its effort to curtail the massive industrial oil theft through inter alia, the completion and activation of the real time online monitoring of all oil and gas assets and facilities.
According to the group, “The expected revenues from company income tax, value added tax, customs collection, education tax, independent revenue, domestic recovery, etc., are realistic and should be approved.
“However, legislative steps should be taken to block leakages in oil revenue, minerals and mining and electronic money transfer levy.”
It called for the introduction of technology by revenue collection agencies in their activities to boost FGN’s revenue “but it is a capital NO to new taxes (including VAT) under any guise,” it said.
The CSJ called for the deployment of smart policies and legislative interventions to ensure that Nigeria reaps the full benefits from operations of private refineries and recently rehabilitated public refineries to conserve foreign exchange and for Nigeria to be a net exporter of refined petroleum and associated products.
“The government should consider reduction of the fiscal deficit, especially the deficit financed through new borrowing to not more than 60 per cent of the proposed deficit,” it said, adding that tax expenditure should be capped at not more than five per cent of aggregate revenue, insisting that the five per cent rule should be part of an amended Fiscal Responsibility Act.
“The Legislature should demand the list of proposed tax expenditures and the justifications as an appendix to the Appropriation Bill and consider and approve same with the budget.”
It also called on the National Assembly to meticulously scrutinize administrative capital votes and cap same at not more than 10 per cent of the capital vote, noting that the savings should be reprogrammed to developmental capital.
Other recommendations made by the group include, that the government should disperse and re-allocate not less than 70 per cent of Service Wide Votes to the MDAs that have statutory mandates over the projects and issues; government should streamline infrastructure projects in MDAs like Works, Water Resources, Power, etc., to ensure that resources are not so thinly spread. This it said, will guarantee budgetary performance and results as well as value for money; ensure that lump sum votes and project tied loans are disaggregated and details made available to Nigerians before approval; use legislative interventions to activate the mandatory and compulsory health insurance regime of the National Health Insurance Authority Act and enact a Health Development Bank of Nigeria Act; enact a Buy Made in Nigeria Act to facilitate the building of a concentric circle, of a Nigerian economy for Nigerians in Nigeria and in the Diaspora, some form of “Make Nigeria Great Again” Policy. It said this will guarantee that budgetary expenditure stimulates the Nigerian economy for growth.
CSJ also called on the National Assembly to enact a Road Fund and Road Management Authority Act that will raise funds from a plethora of sources for the development of the Roads Sector, and to ensure that the South East, South West, North West and North East Development Commissions have the details of their budgets in the public domain before approval. “Secrecy in the programming of these Commissions is the best route to duplicate the waste and lack of value for money associated with earlier Development Commissions,” it concluded.