The Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation, Ben Akabueze, says the N27.5trn 2024 budget estimates awaiting approval at the National Assembly is “way too small” to meet Nigeria’s needs but the government has to cut its coat according to its cloth.
“I’m always first to acknowledge that the budget of the Federal Government of Nigeria is way too small relative to our needs and our requirements but it is now a case of cutting out coat according to our cloth rather than our size,” Akabueze said on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Wednesday.
“The reason this budget is this small is because our public revenues are also too small. We also need to keep the focus on that.”
Akabueze spoke on the economic projections of the President Bola Tinubu government for 2024.
The Budget Office director general insisted that despite the criticisms against the 2024 budget estimates, the appropriation bill caters for the poor in terms of healthcare, security, education and the economy.
On November 29, 2023, the President presented his maiden budget estimates of N27.5trn for the year 2024 to the National Assembly.
Giving a breakdown of the budget estimates, the President fixed recurrent non-debit expenditure at N9.92trn, capital expenditure at N8.73trn, debt service at N8.25trn, revenue at N18.32trn, new borrowings at N7.83trn and deficit at N9.18trn.
According to the President, the economy is expected to grow by 3.76%, while “inflation is expected to moderate to 21.4 percent in 2024”.