2021 Budget: Re-engineer the Ideology that Informs Budgeting Don tells FG

The House of Representatives on Wednesday called on the Federal Government to initiate workable and sustainable policies/ programs that are geared towards expanding and deepening the private sector for the creation of more jobs in the country.

Speaking through the House Committee Chairman on Basic Education and Services, Prof. Julius Ihonvbere ,the member representing Owan Federal Constituency, Edo State, during plenary, the lawmaker stated that the N13.8 trillion budget presented by President Mohammadu Buhari, did not fully capture policies, programmes and actions that could help reduce unemployment rate for teeming youths in the society with regards the present state of the economy.

Hon. Ihonvbere, who also described the budget as ”an annual ritual”, that has been in existence since political independence, called on the Executive arm of Government, on the  need to re-engineer the philosophy and ideology that informs budgeting.

“First, I think the philosophy and ideology that inform budgeting on the executive side, needs to be re-engineered”. “This year’s budget is tagged “Economic Recovery”, In development literature, nobody is talking of economic development anymore because the best laid economic plan can be destroyed by political instability”.

The lawmaker, who expressed displeasure with the job creation policies and strategies approach of the Federal Government, noted that it is fast becoming a National embarrassment.

“This government once came up to say it wanted to create jobs, and I want to stand to say the kind of jobs that the government is creating is not the kind that will create growth and development”. “This N30,000 jobs they are creating, which after 3 months the individual becomes jobless, is an embarrassment”. “They should begin to channel energy and discussions on how to empower, expand and deepen the private sector towards creating more jobs and not the 774,000 three month job, which sound nice and sexy but in reality, creates more frustration, anger and desperation to the political system”.

While stating the loss of fate in the Federal Government by people of his constituency due to absence of Federal presence in the area, also expressed his disappointment on the continuous state of abandoned Federal Government projects in Owan.

“The Constituency has a lot of abandoned Federal Government projects. And i have moved motions to this regard and nothing is happening, I have written series of letters to the ministers nothing is done”. “People are dying on the Okene – Okpella road everyday, many prominent persons have been kidnapped”.  “I moved a motion on the abandoned Sabo-Sobe road, a federal road and nothing has been done. The bridge linking Edo state to Ondo State is now a death-trap, where a small Volkswagen will have to stop for another to pass”.

He also lamented the huge numbers of ongoing projects in the Education sector as Committee Chairman, which does not represent the continuity, development and the sensitivity of Government to the people. He therefore, called on the leadership of the House, to as a matter of urgent public interest, birth a workable system by which the House will get the Executive arm to look at projects they have initiated and left uncompleted.

“I want to believe that if we go back to why the previous budget did not perform optimally, we will begin to get the answers to which we should be focusing on to help this country because we’ve been making budgets since political independence, but what do we have? Unemployment is still rampant, infrastructure are bad, women are still been marginalized and oppressed in the system, our schools are in dilapidated state including Federal unity schools.”.

“There is an urgent need to look at the fundamental structural problems with budgeting, budget implementation, monitoring and evaluation in order to set a new foundation”, he added.