Delayed Budget: Economy will not witness meaningful growth in Q2- Economist
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so fiscal policy and fiscal actions were put on hold throughout the period1 by chinyere joel nwokeoma1 tella a professor of economics from olabisi onabanjo university oou ago-iwoye in ogun spoke in an interview with the news agency of nigeria nan in lagos1 according to him the economy will not witness meaningful growth unless the budget is passed on time to complement the monetary policy to be introduced by the newly inaugurated monetary policy committee mpc1 it takes time for implemented policies to have effect on the economy. therefore we should not expect much improvement in output of the capital market and the economy at large tella said1 he said that the capital market was largely bearish in the first quarter of the year while the economy remained sluggish in spite of positive indices1 both are symptomatic of an unsettled economy where governments macroeconomic policy is unpredictable1 this was so because both fiscal and monetary policies have not been put in place due to the perilous activities of the legislature1 we can recall that up till now the 2018 budget has not been passed1 an economist prof. sheriffdeen tella on monday advised nigerians not to expect much from the nations economy in the second quarter following continue delayed in the passage of 2018 budget1 the central banks monetary policy membership committee was not properly constituted to meet and fashion out monetary policy due to failure of the legislature to approve new members submitted for consideration by the executive1 where you have such situation the policy environment cannot be conducive for business activities to thrive tella said1 nan reports that the national assembly had on march 27 postponed the approval of 2018 until may1 this is contrary to the expectations that the 2018 budget estimates of n8.612 trillion would be passed by april1 the chairman house committee on appropriations rep mustapha dawaki had on tuesday explained that if the budget was not passed by april 24 then the n2.06 trillion 2017 capital budget would run until may 311 dawaki made this known at the 2018 national budget hearing in abuja which was jointly organised by the senate and house committees on appropriation1 nan recalls that president muhammadu buhari had in his presentation of the 2018 appropriation bill to a joint session of the national assembly on nov.7 2017 called for speedy passage of the budget1 the president said that this would allow for implementation of the january to december budget cycle1 however the two chambers of the national assembly had attributed the delay in the budget passage to refusal of heads of ministries departments and parastatal agencies mdas to come forward and defend their respective budget proposals. nan1