By Adedapo Adesanya
The federal government may return to the National Assembly for the appropriation of extra revenue for the 2024 budget if the country records a solid revenue performance next year, according to the country’s Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of Economy, Mr Wale Edun.
The Minister made this known on Monday when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Finance to defend his ministry’s budget.
Speaking at the red chamber, Mr Edun affirmed that the President Bola Tinubu-led government would rely on savings to boost the availability of funds to finance the 2024 budget, while also indicating that the federal government might consider a budget increase.
During his appearance on Monday, the Senate urged the Finance Minister to remove bottlenecks in delays in the implementation of the budget when passed.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee, Mr Sani Musa, also expressed concerns over the government’s inability to hasten implementation of the 2023 supplementary budget.
Recall that President Tinubu, late last month, presented his maiden budget estimates of N27.5 trillion for the year 2024 to the National Assembly.
Giving a breakdown of the budget estimates, the President fixed recurrent non-debit expenditure at N9.92 trillion, capital expenditure at N8.73 trillion, debt service at N8.25 trillion, revenue at N18.32 trillion, new borrowings at N7.83 trillion and deficit at N9.18 trillion.
According to the President, the economy is expected to grow by 3.76 per cent, while inflation is expected to moderate to 21.4 per cent in 2024.
Mr Tinubu told the lawmakers that the bill presented to them would “go further than ever before in cementing macro-economic stability, reducing the deficit, increasing capital spending and allocation to reflect the eight priority areas of this administration.”
“The budget we now present constitutes the foundation upon which we shall erect the future of this great nation,” he further said.
However, last week, the Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation, Mr Ben Akabueze, said the 2024 budget, which is Nigeria’s biggest ever, is not enough to meet the country’s needs. He, however, warned that the government has to cut its coat according to its cloth.
“I’m always first to acknowledge that the budget of the Federal Government of Nigeria is way too small relative to our needs and our requirements but it is now a case of cutting out coats according to our cloth rather than our size,” Mr Akabueze said on a programme on Channels Television.
Modupe Gbadeyanka