October 7, 2022

The Federal government has disclosed plans to finance the budget deficit mainly by new borrowings totalling 8.80 trillion Naira, 206.18 billion Naira from Privatization Proceeds and 1.77 trillion Naira drawdowns on bilateral/multilateral loans secured for specific development projects/programmes.

President Muhammadu Buhari disclosed this on Friday when he presented the 2023 budget before a joint session of the National Assembly in Abuja.

“As envisaged by the law, we need to exceed this threshold considering the need to continue to tackle the existential security challenges facing the country”.

The President noted that over time,” we have resorted to borrowing to finance our fiscal gaps. We have been using loans to finance critical development projects and programmes aimed at further improving our economic environment and enhance the delivery of public services to our people”.

“As you are aware, we have witnessed two economic recessions within the period of this Administration. A direct result of this is the significant decline in our revenue generating capacity.

“In both cases, we had to spend our way out of recession, resulting in higher public debt and debt service. It is unlikely that our recovery from each of the two recessions would have been as fast without the sustained government expenditure funded by debt,” he said.