FG PLANS N8.9TN BUDGET FOR 2019

The Federal Government is planning to spend a total of N8.9tn in the 2019 fiscal period.

The amount is an increase of N305.86bn over the original estimates of N8.61tn presented to the legislature on November 7, 2017 by President Muhammadu Buhari for the 2018 fiscal year.

However, the planned N8.9tn spending will be about N220bn lower than the N9.12tn 2018 budget, which was passed by the National Assembly and assented to by the President.

The government is also planning to raise a total of N6.32tn as revenue next year to finance the budget.

The N6.32tn, when compared to the N7.16tn revenue projection approved for the current year, represents a decline of about N840bn.

The figures are contained in the Fiscal Strategy Paper of the Federal Government, which was obtained by our correspondent from the Budget Office of the Federation in Abuja.

The document showed that as a result of the planned increase in spending, the fiscal deficit of the government was expected to rise from the current N1.9tn to N2.59tn in 2019. Further analysis of the document showed that the ratio of the country’s deficit to Gross Domestic Product was estimated to be at 2.08 per cent by next year.

It was also revealed that capital expenditure as a percentage of non-debt expenditure had been estimated at 41.28 per cent for 2019. In the same vein, capital expenditure as a percentage of the total Federal Government spending is expected to drop from 31.5 per cent this year to 29.57 per cent next year, while recurrent expenditure as a percentage of government spending is being planned to rise from 68.5 per cent to 70.43 per cent.

(Punch)