By Lubem Gena Abuja
Th e federal government has appealed to foreign donor agencies against plans to withdraw their supports in view of the present economic situation in the country. Director-General of the Budget Offi ce, Dr. Ben Akabueze, dropped the hint in Abuja at the one-day retreat for National Assembly members with the theme: “Understanding Nigeria’s Lower Middle Income Status and Unlocking Potential for Local Resource Mobilisation for Social Sector Financing” organised by the Civil Society Legislative and Advocacy Centre, (CISLAC). He said with the rebasing of the country’s economy in 2014, was classifi ed as a medium income country, which had posed some challenges, pointing out that access to such funding became dwindling.
“Nigeria needs to address its dependence on donor funding for some critical sector programmes, especially, in health and education. Th ese funds will not be available in the same quantum they used to be, going forward. “When you look at incidents of poverty and extreme inequality in income, we think that there is a case for these donors to delay or slow down this transition for Nigeria. We don’t if we are going to succeed in persuading them on that case. But it is a case that I think that the National Assembly should join us in making to our development partners”.
According to him, it was sad that in spite of the level of interventions by foreign donor agencies and partners, the country is yet to maximally benefi t from the intended outcomes of such programs and projects. “Another critical component of external fi nancing which is donor fi nancing though has increased, we haven’t experienced commensurate level of impact. “But as signifi cant as donor funding has been, the truth is if we got our act together, we could have continue to see more of donor support as we go forward. Th ere have been issues about transparency, accountability and even institutional unpreparedness to utilise those funds”, he stated.
