President Muhammadu Buhari has now signed the 2023 appropriation bill of N21.83 trillion into law.
The 2023 budget which provides for aggregate expenditures of N21.83 trillion, had an increase of N1.32 trillion over the initial executive proposal for a total expenditure of N20.51 trillion.
President Buhari said the minister of finance, budget and national planning would subsequently provide more details of the approved budget and the supporting 2022 finance act.
Speaking on the increment of N1.32 trillion, an economist, Paul Alaje says the national assembly have seen the need to increase the budget because they knew that the oil Benchmark should be increased, they also increased the exchange rate thereby having more funds to finance some of the the recurrent expenditure and some few capital expenditure, they feel it became very necessary for the country.
Mr Alaje stated that he doubts if a lot of projection in the budget will be met.
According to him, there are a lot of things that beg for attention and if we can be able to achieve them.
In terms of revenue expectation, government is also looking at something that is perhaps, one of the highest in the history.
Meeting revenue target has been a major concern for Nigeria in recent history especially at the federal level.
The country was unable to meet its revenue targets in 2022 and 2021
“I don’t know what will be different in this budget but i doubt if there will be a difference”.
Still speaking, Mr ALaje said compared to global standard, the our exchange rate is poor but when you realise that the amounts we are budgeting is indeed low.
According to him, the real question should be how do we intend to finance this budget.
“A significant proportion of this budget, will come from borrowings and we have over 6.55 trillion naira that will pay on service of debt.
