Budget for 2023 would result in unemployment and inflation, says Utomi

According to Pat Utomi, a political economy professor and the founder of the Centre for Values in Leadership, the recently passed 2023 budget will result in severe inflation, job losses, and a collapse of the currency rate.

The analyst who referred to it as a debt servicing budget claimed that the expected figures of N9 trillion in revenue and N21 trillion in expenditures defied common sense.

On Channels TV's Politics Today on Wednesday, Utomi shared his viewpoint.

"This budget will result in job losses and significant inflation," he declared. It will cause the exchange rate to crash. The explanations are straightforward: this budget is for debt service.

"What is the administration of Muhammadu Buhari's goal? He claims he wants to create 100 million jobs in ten years, and I wonder if this budget can do that.

"They forecast N21 trillion in spending and N9 trillion in revenue. You already have an unmanageable debt load. Anyone who is familiar with economics will find this to be absurd.

"You would say that if Nigeria were a place where investors were rushing in, the influx of tax revenue would hasten production. When people don't invest, there is an ideal tax collection rate.

Nigeria already has a problem, which Forbes Magazine referred to in 2019 as Africa's money-losing machine. Money has been leaving Nigeria because few people want to invest.
Utomi stated that he held the Buhari-led administration accountable for the nation's economic troubles, pointing out that part of the issue was handing control of the fiscal and monetary policies to the CBN.

"I firmly attribute the economic difficulties we are experiencing to the Buhari administration. Their actions over the past eight years have not been successful.

The Central Bank's present printing of 2,900% of the nation's currency without a corresponding value is the government's primary source of funding.

"In the beginning of this government, no one was in charge of managing fiscal policy. Then, the Central Bank began to manage both fiscal and monetary policy, and it went too far by exceeding its own bounds. The methods and means improvements in the assertion of firing up economic operations turned into a habit, breaking regulations governing fiscal responsibility.

Utomi went on to say that the economy was being managed in a way that was "not people friendly, not sensitive to the creation of jobs, and not focused on economic growth," and that the government was overburdened.
"You need to stop the forward motion. The government is too big. All of this money is going toward ongoing expenses. More than just firing employees is involved. He asked, "Do you know how many government servants go on the president's foreign trips.