Economy: Experts unimpressed with Buhari

Reactions continue to trail the democracy day speech by Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari, who in his speech had reeled out several milestones his administration had achieved in the economy.
According to the president, his administration focused on revamping the ailing economy it inherited in 2015, and in 2016, it executed an expansionary budget and developed the Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP).
He said: “For the first time, 30% of the budget was earmarked for capital expenditure which represents an upward review when compared with the 2015 budget. The SIP was followed by the development of a comprehensive medium term plan – the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan 2017 – 2020.”
“The broad strategic objectives of the ERGP were to; Restore and sustain economic growth; Build a globally competitive economy; and Invest in our people. The implementation of the ERGP has started yielding results. The National Bureau of Statistics reports that the economy grew by 1.95% in 1st quarter 2018, which is a good performance when viewed against -0.91 in 1st quarter 2017 and -0.67% in 1st quarter 2016 respectively,” the President said.
But Presidential hopeful, Jaye Gaskia, insists that Nigeria’s budget performance since 2016 has been nothing to write home about saying that the federal government has been operating a budget that is unrealistic.
“What we have seen since 2016 is that they have been having inflationary figures, but when you look at the fundamentals and the rudiments, it is an unrealistic budget. So you will ask yourself; why do you want huge figures if it is going to be unrealistic,” he queried.
Jaye further insisted that the All Progressive Congress (APC) led federal government’s plan for economic recovery and growth built around the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) was faulty as they lack identifiable milestones.
According to him, the Plan is not integrated and can only bring short term economic benefits.
“When you have a plan that is not integrated then you have a challenge with the setting up of these Focus Labs because they are simply going to be at best centres that will spur some growth, but it will still be a distorted growth. It will still be an economy that is distorted, inchoate, and still not balanced,” he added.
The President further said that foreign reserve has improved significantly to $47.5 billion as of May, 2018 as against $29.6 billion in 2015. The inflationary rate has consistently declined every month since January, 2017.