The Federal Government has said that it may consider returning to the National Assembly to seek the federal lawmakers’ approval for a supplementary budget next year if the government surpasses its revenue projections.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s N27.5tn 2024 national budget is currently being considered by the federal parliament.
Speaking before the joint sitting of the National Assembly Committee on Finance on Monday, Mr Wale Edun told the lawmakers that there had been a tremendous improvement in the nation’s revenue profile in recent months.
He said if the revenue continue to increase, the federal government would have no other option than to return to the National Assembly to seek further appropriation for the additional revenue.
The Minister said, “Revenue performance is encouraging. It is expected that it would continue to be encouraging, there is a fiscal policy and tax reform committee which is already at work.
“It is meant to provide fundamental changes together with digitalization and greater efficiency in the collection because it is revenue to debt that can allow us to increase this budget.
“If we have a solid revenue performance, we will be coming back, and am sure Mr President will authorise the process to return to the National Assembly to appropriate extra revenue that is a situation we are all looking forward to.”
Edun said that the Federal Government was already looking at how to speed up the procurement process to increase capital spending in the 2024 budget.
He said, “When we look at the actual budget performance, expenditure as of the third quarter of the year which is September, was 32 per cent below the budget estimate.
“Revenue was five per cent up, the revenue performance is quite encouraging because of change in the exchange rate, a depreciation of the currency and the fact we have a foreign debt of about $46bn outstanding.
“This means that debt service was up by 18 per cent, and capital expenditure performed below budget quite significantly.
“We are looking at the issue of procurement process and ways to speed up capital spending.
“In terms of the overall balance of the budget, the fiscal deficit is expected to come down from N13.7tn to N9.2tn.
“Importantly, the deficit, the amount of the budget to be funded by borrowing is down from 6.1 per cent to 3.9 per cent, and the percentage of GDP and Capital expenditure remains at 32 per cent so that is the whole structure of the budget.
The Chairman of the Joint National Assembly Committee on Finance, Senator Sani Musa, said Nigeria was currently in a delicate situation, economically.
He, however, said that the Tinubu administration was doing everything possible to change the narratives.
Musa said, “Nigeria today has found itself in a delicate situation, the high rate of unemployment and you know this transition period.
“It is a new government, so we must give Nigerians the right budget. We must look at our revenue projections, we must look at our performances and then look at what we are committing ourselves to by the time this budget is passed.
“We want to make sure that before we even pass the budget we have checked it, where to dot and cross it, we do it and at the end of the day, we will have a budget that is at least what is expected.
“We need a budget that will renew the hope of this country and that is why Mr President tagged it the renewed Hope Budget,” Musa said.
