Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, on Thursday presented the 2014 budget estimate of N4.6tr to the National Assembly.
She laid the document on the table before the senators during their plenary, presided over by Senate President David Mark.
Mark said the action was in conformity with section 81 of the 1999 Constitution as amended, which empowered the President to communicate the budget to the National Assembly.
Iweala, who was accompanied to the Senate by some of her colleagues in the cabinet and the Director-General of the Budget Office, explained to journalists after her assignment that the aggregate expenditure of N3.73tr was expected as revenue.
She, however, said the SURE-P fund was not part of the estimated budget.
She put the capital expenditure at about N1.1tr, which according to her, is about 27 per cent of the budget.
The balance, she added, was the recurrent expenditure, “which is about 72 per cent of the budget.”
She said, “This budget is the budget for job creation and inclusive growth; meaning that its a budget which will continue the president’s transformation agenda for several sectors of the economy.
“The budget is going to support the push in agriculture; it will kick-start the housing sector where we can create more jobs; it is designed to promote our policies that would support manufacturing because jobs would be created there.
“Industries will also be created in solid minerals. All these support will continued to be unleashed. Job creation is the key to really solving the problems of the Nigerian economy.”
Source: Punch
