2023 budget ready for presentation on Friday
President Muhammadu Buhari has been scheduled to formally present the 2023 fiscal bill to the joint session of the Nation Assembly on Friday 7th of October. This will be his last budget presentation to the National Assembly as his eight-year reign of two terms gradually winds up.
What are the key assumptions in the budget documents?
According to Tribune Online, the document is expected to put the oil benchmark at $70 per barrel and crude oil production at 1.69mbpd. The exchange rate was pegged at N435.57/$, Inflation rate is projected to be at 17.16% while the growth rate will be pegged at 3.75% from a revised projection of 3.55% for the year 2022.
“Upward pressure on price is expected to be driven by the current and lag effect of the global price surge due to the Russia-Ukraine war, domestic insecurity, rising costs of imports, exchange rate depreciation, as well as other supply-side constraints” the document also revealed.
What else?
According to the minister of Finance, Budget, and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, in the first scenario, the budget deficit is projected to be at 12.41 trillion naira in 2023, up from 7.35 trillion naira in the 2022 budget, representing 196% of the total revenue or 5.50% of the estimated GDP. Fuel subsidy is projected to gulp 6.72 trillion under this arrangement. While in the second scenario, the Federal Government projects a fiscal deficit of 11.30trillion naira, about 5.01% of the estimated GDP.
