- Approves 2024-2026 Medium-Term Expenditure Framework
- Nigeria’s inflation climbs to 26.72%
- Disquiet over $1.5bn World Bank loan
- Investors lose N89.42bn as equities market dips by 0.24%
BY FESTUS OKOROMADU, ABUJA
The Federal Government, on Monday, said it is projecting N26.01 trillion as expenditures for the 2024 fiscal year.
The Minister of Budget and National Planning, Abubakar Bagudu, told State House Correspondents after the Federal Executive Council meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja that the Federal Government also approved the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework for 2024 – 2026.
Bagudu affirmed that the administration would maintain the January – December budget implementation cycle as President Bola Tinubu would soon present the 2024 appropriation bill to the National Assembly to ensure its ratification before December 31, 2023.
“The aggregate expenditure is estimated at N26.01 trillion for the 2024 budget, which includes statutory transfers of N1.3trillion non-debt recurrent expenditure of N10.26 trillion. Debt service estimated at N8.25 trillion as well as N7.78trillion being provided for personnel pension costs,” the Minister said.
Bagudu clarified the increased debt service saying it is “because N22.7 trillion Ways and Means was securitised, meaning it became a Federal Government debt at nine per cent.”
This amounts to N2.1 trillion as debt service.
Equally, personnel costs rose significantly due to transfers from the agreement between the Federal Government and the Organised Labour.
He also said that the Federal Government would present a supplementary budget given its growing obligations since the removal of petroleum subsidy.
“Yes, there would be a supplementary budget because there are continuing obligations and there are responses to security which can be immediate,” Bagudu affirmed.
He explained that the perceived delays would not truncate the January – December implementation cycle because the President is engaging with the National Assembly long before presentation day.
“Mr. President is mindful of those and is assessing them. But he is also committed to the budget process and its integrity. He wants to ensure that monies that are appropriated will be spent in the period for which they are appropriated.
“And then in terms of presentation of the budget, Mr. President has been engaging with the National Assembly leadership, even ahead of the presentation to say ‘these are our assumptions, these are our thought processes,’ so that it can reduce the lead time for which the budget has to go through such considerations.
“We believe that this budget will be presented in good time, particularly the 2024 budget to be passed and signed before December 31, 2023,” the minister explained.
Nigeria’s inflation climbs to 26.72%
Meanwhile, Nigeria’s inflation rate has climbed to 26.72 per cent, marking a 0.92 per cent increase from the previous month’s 25.80 per cent.
The National Bureau of Statistics disclosed this on Monday via its latest Consumer Price Index report for September 2023.
It was shared on the X handle of NBS.
The upsurge in inflation is mainly linked to the removal of petrol subsidies and the devaluation of the official exchange rate, both exerting substantial impacts on consumer prices.
It said, “September 2023, the headline inflation rate increased to 26.72 per cent relative to the August 2023 headline inflation rate which was 25.80 per cent.
“Looking at the movement, the September 2023 headline inflation rate showed an increase of 0.92 percentage points when compared to the August 2023 headline inflation rate.
“On a year-on-year basis, the headline inflation rate was 5.94 per cent points higher compared to the rate recorded in September 2022, which was 20.77 per cent.
“This shows that the headline inflation rate (year-on-year basis) increased in September 2023 when compared to the same month in the preceding year (i.e., September 2022).”
Disquiet over $1.5bn World Bank loan
In the same vein, a former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and presidential aspirant under the African Democratic Congress, Kingsley Moghalu, has raised concern over Nigeria’s plan to borrow $1.5 billion from the World Bank.
As part of the government’s efforts to address the fiscal gap in the 2023 budget, the Minister of Finance, Wale Edun, confirmed plans to secure a $1.5 billion loan from the World Bank.
“On the talks with the World Bank on $1.5 billion budget support, that is correct. The World Bank is the number one multilateral development bank helping developing countries or funding developing countries, projects and programmes, and sectors,” Edun said, adding “the World Bank money is the cheapest.”
The Minister pointed out that the country has taken bold and courageous steps to attract investments and that Nigeria was now top consideration when people are looking at where to invest.
“Nigeria is definitely on the right path; we have taken the right decision for the economy to recover and for it to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI),” he added.
However, Moghalu criticized the increasing borrowing trend while high-value purchases, like SUVs worth N160 million each for 360 House of Representatives members, are being considered and called for prudent management of the country’s finances.
Investors lose N89.42bn as equities market dips by 0.24%
Also, trading activities on the Nigerian Exchange Limited on Monday witnessed lower turnover relative to the previous session with the value of transactions down by 14.73 percent.
Sell-off pressure on the shares of STANBIC, WAPCO, and UBA which declined by 10.00, 1.02, and 2.16 percent respectively outweighed gains in bank stocks to close the market with a loss of 162.76 basis points.
Consequently, the NGX All-Share Index declined by 0.24 percent to close at 67,037.93 basis points as the market capitalization shed N89.42 billion to close at N36.83 trillion.
As a result, year-to-date return on investment fell to 30.80 percent.
Analysis of market activities showed that a total of 216.07 million shares valued at N3.55 billion were exchanged in 5,965 deals.
The share price of UBA which rose by 2.28 percent led the volume and value chart with 32.62 million units traded in transactions worth N579.35 million.
The market breadth closed negative at a 1.19-to-1 ratio with declining issues outnumbering advanced ones. STANBIC led 18 others stocks to top the losers’ pack, while NASCON which gained 5.45 percent led 15 others on the gainers’ chart.