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2013 Budget: President to send an amendment bill to NASS soon

By on March 9, 2013

President Goodluck Jonathan will eventually send to the National Assembly, a proposal to amend the 2013 budget, in which fiscal deficit has been projected to improve to about 1.85 percent of Gross Domestic Product, as against 2.85% in 2012.

The proposal is already resolved by the National Assembly and the executive, even as resolution of the budgetary allocation to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) which the National Assembly deliberately removed from the budget keeps dragging.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, co-ordinating minister for the economy and Minister of Finance, confirmed this Thursday at a press briefing on the 2013 budget breakdown in Abuja, where she also announced that  government has started trimming allocations to agencies with duplicating functions to save cost.

The amendment, according to her, would make up the challenging distortions the law makers made to the budget which apparently delayed the President’s assent to the bill. The CME said the amendment would seek to resolve three main challenging areas, including, reductions in the wage bill; major capital expenditures which the law makers re-allocated in the process of appropriation. The president would also use the proposal to get the National Assembly  to correct those reallocations they made to the budget for the Subsidy Re-Investment programme (SURE- P).

The co-ordinating minister further announced that President Jonathan has already assigned the minister of Special Duties to assist in overseeing the implementation of the N100 billion constituency projects across the country, going forward.

The 2013 Budget, with the theme, ‘fiscal consolidation with inclusive growth’ is hinged on four main pillars namely: Macroeconomic stability, Structural reforms, Governance and Institutions, and Investing in priority sectors. It is underpinned by an assumption of oil production of 2.53 million barrels per day, compared to 2.48 million barrels per day in 2012; benchmark oil price of $79 per barrel, up from $72 per barrel in 2012;  a projected real GDP growth rate of 6.5 per cent and an average Exchange Rate of N160 per dollar.

The 2013 Budget gives priority to the nation’s key concerns for security, infrastructure, food security and human development.

 

 

[Business Day]