THE Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of Economy, Wale Edun, says the Federal Government (FG) may return to the National Assembly to request additional revenue for the 2024 budget if the country has a strong revenue performance next year.
This was made clear by the minister when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Finance yesterday to defend his ministry’s budget.
Edun said that the Federal Government will rely on savings to increase the availability of cash for the 2024 budget, while also hinting that the Federal Government may contemplate a budget rise.
During his presentation yesterday, the Senate encouraged the finance minister to remove bottlenecks that are causing delays in budget implementation when it is passed.
Sani Musa, Chairman of the Senate Committee, raised concern over the government’s inability to expedite the implementation of the 2023 supplementary budget.
President Bola Tinubu presented the National Assembly with his first budget estimates for the year 2024 on November 29, 2023.
The President fixed recurrent non-debit expenditure at N9.92 trillion, capital expenditure at N8.73 trillion, debt service at N8.25 trillion, revenue at N18.32 trillion, new borrowings at N7.83 trillion, and the deficit at N9.18 trillion.
According to the President, the economy would increase by 3.76%, while “inflation is expected to moderate to 21.4 percent in 2024.”
