FG considers increasing budget for 2024- Wale Edun

On Monday, the Federal Government (FG) made a suggestion that, should income projections surpass expectations, it would revisit the National Assembly the following year to request members’ approval for an additional budget.

Currently being considered by the federal parliament is President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s N27.5 trillion 2024 appropriations bill.

In a joint meeting with the National Assembly Committee on Finance, Mr. Wale Edun, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, stated that the nation’s revenue profile has significantly improved recently.

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According to Edun, if income growth persisted, the federal administration might go back to the National Assembly to request more funding.

“We can see that the revenue profile is encouraging,” the minister stated, praising the revenue performance.

It is anticipated that the positive trend would persist. A committee on tax reform and fiscal policy is already in operation.

“In addition to digitalization and increased collection efficiency, it is intended to bring about substantial changes because it is debt revenue that may allow us to even raise this budget.

“We plan to return if our revenue performance is strong, and I have no doubt that Mr. President will approve the process of going back to the National Assembly to request additional funding.” We’re all looking forward to that scenario.

According to Edun, in order to boost capital investment in the 2024 budget, the federal government was already considering ways to expedite the procurement process.

“Expenditure as of the third quarter of the year, which is September, was 32% below the budget estimate,” he stated while examining the actual budget performance.

“We saw a five percent increase in revenue. This is quite encouraging given the recent fluctuations in the exchange rate, the depreciation of the dollar, and the approximately $46 billion in outstanding foreign debt.”

This indicates that while capital expenditures drastically underperformed their budget, debt servicing increased by 18%.

We are investigating how to expedite capital expenditure as well as the procurement procedure.

“With regard to the overall budget balance, it is anticipated that the fiscal deficit will decrease from N13.7 trillion to N9.2 trillion.

Significantly, the deficit—that is, the portion of the budget that must be borrowed—has decreased from 6.1% to 3.9%. That is, the entire budgetary framework is based on the fact that capital expenditures as a percentage of GDP stay at 32%.

“In the meantime, efforts are being made on the tax side to raise tax revenue as a percentage of GDP from its current low level of less than 10% to 18% in the next two to three years.”

According to Senator Sani Musa, the chairman of the Joint National Assembly Committee on Finance, Nigeria’s economy is currently in a precarious position.

But according to Musa, the Tinubu administration is making every effort to alter the story.

Musa stated, “With its high unemployment rate and current period of transition, Nigeria has found itself in a delicate situation.”

We must allocate the appropriate money to Nigerians as this is a new government. Which budget is appropriate? By the time this budget is approved, we will have to evaluate our performance, our income estimates, and our commitments.

“We want to make sure that, before we even approve the budget, we have thoroughly examined it, know exactly where to put the dot and where to cross it, and, in the end, have a budget that does, at the very least, what is anticipated.”

“Mr. President, this budget is called the renewed Hope Budget because we need it to renew the hope of this nation.”