President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday restated his commitment to the current anti-graft war and public finance prudence in order to deliver on his electioneering promises to change the country by improving the socio-economic wellbeing of the citizenry.
Giving the assurance in his Independence Day television broadcast, the President said that he would prefer to do the right things even slowly to get the desired results than to be in a needless hurry that ultimately would not impact the desired change in the country.
He quipped: “Impatience is not a virtue,” while explaining that the ongoing audits of key state institutions such as Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC and reforms in the banking sector, the Nigeria Customs Service and other revenue collection agencies were part of the anti-graft measures to entrench fiscal discipline in governance. He clarified: “Prudent housekeeping is needed now more than ever in view of the sharp decline in world market oil prices.
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It is a challenge we have to face squarely.” Although the results of the government’s fiscal and monetary policy measures are yet to be felt in concrete terms by millions of vulnerable or socio-economically deprived Nigerians, particularly the army of unemployed youths, development and economic analysts believe that as desirable as the measures portend, the need to properly focus the economy has become imperative.
For instance, the recently introduced Treasury Single Account (TSA), policy as well as other monetary policies being churned out the CBN are seen as desirable but that their implementation should be guided to ensure that they don’t close channels to public finance assess or cripple the economy.
In his remarks on the TSA, the Director General of Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, LCCI, Mr Muda Yusuf, agreed that “the major advantage of the TSA is the fact that it will ensure and improve revenue inflow into the Federation Account, and this will improve the fiscal stability of all the levels of government federal, state and local.
“However, it is necessary to caution against the resultant bureaucratic bottleneck that could be created in the disbursement of funds to the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) for their operations. If care is not taken, the operations of some of the agencies may be crippled, if there is no adequate framework for speedy release of funds to the agencies for their daily operations.”
