BUDGET 2017: HERE'S THE LIST OF THE FEW PEOPLE THAT WILL BENEFIT FROM IT.

It’s no longer news that the Acting President, Pastor Yemi Osinbajo, on Monday 12^th June, 2017 signed the 2017 Appropriation Act into law. As it’s always the case in Nigeria, this 2017 budget is christened: ‘Budget of Economic Recovery and Growth’. According to the projections, the government is expecting total revenue of N5.08tn and an aggregate expenditure of N7.44tn. This leaves us with a projected fiscal deficit of N2.36tn which the government says will be financed largely through borrowing.

Although after signing the document into law, the Acting President told Nigerians that the 2017 budget is an important milestone in the nation’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan that was unveiled in April by President Muhammadu Buhari.

But, as it stands today, the 2017 budget, even before its commencement had already suffered some serious setbacks which I fear may bring disappointments eventually. For instance, at the time of preparing the budget, the projections were predicated on an inflation rate of 12.9 percent but as at today, inflation rate is about 17.24percent.

So, what I really want you to do today is to put yourself in the budget picture and see how that document can transform your personal economy. You will recall that the 2016 FG Budget was christened the “Budget of Change”. In a press release on Friday October 28, 2016, the Minister for Budget & National Planning, Hon. Udoma Udoma said the budget as at that date achieved a 79 per cent performance which ordinarily means excellent but does the reality on ground reflect the same?

The fact is that, no matter how large or small the government budget may be, there are certain categories of people that are already well positioned to benefit from the budget.

Now let me explain, if you look into the sectoral allocation in the 2017 budget for instance, Power, Works and Housing has an estimate of N529bn. Can you benefit from this money? Perhaps no but companies like Julius Berger, RCC, etc will be happy because apart from the chunk they got in 2016, something big is likely to happen this year.

So, what I intend to do here is to help you position yourself to benefit from this budget, either directly or indirectly.

Let me start from salary earners; if you are a salary earner, the only way you might probably benefit from the budget is increase in salaries and wages. But from the 2017 budget, no provision was actually made to that effect so, what that means is that you are most likely to continue receiving the eighteen thousand naira minimum wage. If that be the story, then you are most likely to experience financial challenges this year because your salary might not be able to buy those things you could easily afford last year. For instance a bottle of coke that you use to buy at N50 is now N80, your children’s school fees might be adjusted upward in the course of the year, etc.

For the self employed (small business owner), depending on the type of business that you do but you are most likely to incur more overheads, pay higher for inventories, raw materials, pay tax, etc. If you are not able to increase your revenue, the business might likely suffer.

For investors, 2017 might be a good year to smile. When I mean investors I mean those who have investments in stocks/shares, real estate and Intellectual property. House rent in Nigeria had continued to be on the rise yearly, talking of Intellectual property; most of our musicians earn money even while they are sleeping. As the rich investors are making money, they will celebrate so that creates jobs for our comedians, musicians, etc.

I am sorry to tell you this but the truth is that, government budgets are usually designed to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.  There is nothing you can do to change that but there is something you can do to change your own personal economy.

Have you heard about passive income before? May be I will leave it as an assignment for you; go and do a research about passive income. Google can help you out. The Famous Investor guru Warren Buffet always says “If you don’t find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die”.

Imaging you just doing a little job now and you are being paid for it over and over again! There are two major wheels that drive passive income, compounding and leverage. The great Albert Einstein once said “Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it … he who doesn't … pays it.” Talking about leverage, do you know that the most successful investors and business owners always strive to build strong networks? Robert Kiyosaki said, "The richest people in the world look for and build networks; everyone else looks for work."  

There are several opportunities available in Nigeria today through which you could be making amazing legitimate income, without stress. Like I always say, you are poor, not because you don’t have money but you don’t know how to grow the one you have. With as little as N2, 000 you can start up an investment that could be giving you over N500, 000 monthly. Sound impossible? It’s because you don’t know how. It is financial intelligence that makes one rich, not money.

If you are interested pick up your phone now and dial/text/whatsapp: 2348033291724.