YOU ARE WRONG, SIR -  Economists tell ATIKU

Prominent economists in the country have pooh-poohed Atiku’s criticism of the 2011 budget. Professor Akintan-Bello, a Professor of Economics said the former vice president’s arguments are more political than factual. Speaking on Channels Television Sunrise Daily programme, Professor Olaseni Akintan-Bello said the statements about the budget being in deficit and having a huge recurrent expenditure vis a vis capital spending are not unique to President Goodluck Jonathan’s budget. According to him over the last 10 years or so Nigeria has neither had a surplus budget nor more spending on capital expenditure. “Nigeria has never had a surplus budget”, he emphasized.
He challenged Alhaji Atiku to provide a better budget if he can, stressing that the unique state of the Nigerian economy in the global economy given the prevailing recession makes spending imperative and diminishes concerns over the state of the deficit. He also queried blanket statements attributed to Atiku that there is no evidence that the government is spending the budget for infrastructure. “That is not true, if you go to Abuja and other places you will find work being done.”, he claimed. Ama Awala, a Warri-based economist argues that, “you may query the pace of work and other things but not that the budget is nonsensical”. Bismarck Rewane, a financial analyst and chief executive of Financial Derivatives, argued in another radio programme that the economy this year is looking up. He told economist Tilewa Adebajo, the programme moderator, that the economy was coming out of the woods. He said he sees the stock market growing by 40 per cent this year and stated that the economy recorded appreciable growth last year. He is convinced however that despite the appearance of attrition among the aspiring politicians there will be no radical change in economic policy whoever wins the April presidential election. Professor Akintan-Bello however had harsh words for the federal ministry of Finance whose officials he accused of inefficiency, adding that their response that they would address the recurrent expenditure profile should have been done before the budget was released