Nigerians are yet to feel impact of the 2017 budget less than 60 days to the end of the year, The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) lamented yesterday.
“We have not seen the impact at a very large scale of those interventions in the 2017 budget.
“I am not sure there are critical infrastructures that have been addressed in the 2017 budget,” its president, Comrade Ayuba Wabba, told our correspondent yesterday.
He informed the economic team put in place by the congress is studying the 2018 budget estimates presented to the National Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari with a view to engaging the lawmakers and make positive contributions to the process.
“The difference we want to see with the 2018 budget is the issue of those critical infrastructures that can drive the process of development because development cannot thrive if you don’t have power.
”Most companies cannot meet their operational expenses because of the high amount of money they need to put into power.
“Power and roads are very critical infrastructures as well as rail and steel development. We import most of the steel we use in the country now.
“We will save a lot of foreign exchange if we are able to develop steel needed to drive critical infrastructures in this country.
“Most countries in the world try and fix their steel because we need them to build roads, houses and other critical infrastructures.
“This should be the picture of what the budget should be able to address if we want an impact that people can feel and understand as well as get out of this depressed economy,” Wabba stated.
Speaking on recovered loots, the NLC President said: “They should be used to finance critical infrastructures. Some of these loots are coming from a budgetary process that was supposed to address and fix our critical infrastructures.
“Our position is that it should be budgeted for and channeled to very key but critical infrastructures that will require such an intervention that can make the necessary impact.
“That I think is what should be done and it should be managed in a very transparent way.”
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