The Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo has announced the plan by the Federal Government to use a zero-based budgeting format for the 2016 budget plan.
According to him, the zero-based budgeting would be carefully coordinated to ensure that it is policy-driven, especially regarding the proposed social intervention policy of the administration.
He explained zero-based budgeting to mean, planning according to needs and costs, different from the existing Envelope Budgeting or traditionally incremental budgeting whereby the planning is based on existing income and expenditure as the deciding factor in national financial planning levels. This, he added, often incurs waste and assumes previous costs as constant.
Professor Osinbajo spoke yesterday in his office during a courtesy visit by the National Economic Summit Group (NESG). He also met with a delegation from the Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers (CIS) and the Association of Stockbroking Houses of Nigeria (ASHON).
The Vice President said that the introduction of the new TSA policy and its implementation by Ministries, Department and Agencies was a creative way of blocking leakages in the system to make way for a workable budget.
He said that with the zero-based budgeting, the Federal Government will also focus on a bottom-up approach to development.
He said that the Federal Government is planning to set up an infrastructure fund in order to facilitate easy funding for critical areas of the economy.
The infrastructure fund, according to the Vice President, would be planned outside of the budget, to handle major segments of the economy such as road and power.
“Government is working out a document that would guide the administration within the four years of its life-span.” [myad]
