The Federal Government of Nigeria will spend huge part of next year’s national revenue to service debts, pay salaries and run the everyday business of governance. This was contained in President Muhammadu Buhari’s budget speech presented to the Senate on Wednesday.
Spending so much of the appropriated N7.289 trillion on lifestyles — salaries and debt servicing — will threaten the country’s plan to spend its way out of recession amid dwindling revenue in the coming year. Low investment in infrastructure and agriculture as a result of leaner appropriation for Health, Agriculture and Defence will undermine government’s efforts at job creation and fight against insurgency and graft.
Government plans to spend N1.837 trillion (about 25.2 per cent of the total budget estimate) for debt-servicing and about 66 per cent (amounting to N4.81 trillion) as total recurrent expenditure next year. Money need to build physical infrastructure is put at N2.24 trillion, about 30.7 per cent of the budget estimate. Read more details here.