Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
From the Punch
The Federal Government has begun the implementation of the 2013 budget with the release of N400bn for the execution of capital projects in the first quarter of the year.
The 2013 budget was signed into law by President Goodluck Jonathan on February 26 amid reservations.
The President had while signing the budget said an amendment bill would be sent to the National Assembly to address grey areas in the one passed by the legislature.
The identified grey areas include reduction in personnel cost; reallocation of capital expenditure by lawmakers; and reallocation of the budget for the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme.
But while the National Assembly awaits the amended bill, which will be sent in form of a supplementary budget, the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said in a statement issued by her Senior Special Assistant (Communications), Mr. Paul Nwabuikwu, that the decision to release the N400bn was to give impetus to the execution of projects captured in the budget.
Of this amount, she said that N120bn had been set aside to cater for two important initiatives.
They are N75bn for the repayment of bonds and N45bn for the payment of workers of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria.
The N75bn for repayment of bonds, according to the minister, is in line with the new debt management strategy of the Federal Government.
The strategy, she noted, would focus on how to reduce the stock and flow of debt in a proactive manner.
The statement read in part, “The Federal Ministry of Finance has released the sum of N400bn as first capital budget to give impetus to the execution of projects captured in the budget 2013.
“Of this amount, N120bn had been frontloaded to cater for two important initiatives; including N75bn for retiring bonds, which have come due; this is in line with the new debt management strategy, which focuses on reducing the stock and flow of debt in a proactive manner; and N45bn for the payment of PHCN workers.”
Okonjo-Iweala had last week during a presentation on the 2013 budget said the government remained focused on critical economic and social sectors driven largely by private sector activities.
To achieve this, she had said N497bn was allocated to key infrastructure, including power, works, transport, aviation, gas pipelines and Federal Capital Territory; human capital development (education and health), N705bn; and agriculture/water resources, N175bn.
She had said, “We recognise that Nigeria’s infrastructure deficit remains one of the binding constraints to growth in the economy. Therefore, our strategy is to prioritise infrastructure investments in the budget and also to leverage additional external financing for infrastructure investments in the country.
“For example, the 2013 budget has some important infrastructure projects in the transportation sector such as the second Niger Bridge.”
She also said the Federal Government’s would further reduce annual domestic borrowing as well as defray the debts of Nigeria’s foreign missions.
For instance, the minister had said the annual domestic borrowing to finance the budget deficit had been reduced from N852bn in 2011, to N744bn in 2012 and N577bn in 2013
Okonjo-Iweala said, “We are also making concerted efforts to defray the debts of our foreign missions. In this context, we have made a provision of N13bn in the 2013 budget to help clear the accumulated debts as at the cut-off date of June 2012.
“Government has also established a committee under the chairmanship of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, which will work out a system to better manage the assets of our foreign missions.”
The 2013 budget makes provision for an aggregate expenditure of N4.987tn, representing an increase of 6.2 per cent over the N4.697tn appropriated for 2012.