Nigeria’s Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, has warned thatthe deficit financing of the revised N10.509tn 2020 budget may triggerfresh recession.
Speaking yesterday in Abuja during a session with the Senate Committee on Finance where headsof revenue-generating agencies made presentations onthe revised 2020-2022 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and the Fiscal Strategy Paper, the minister noted that projected revenues from the agencies had been drastically slashed.
According to her, 77 per cent of the new financial expectations from sources like the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, the Federal Inland Revenue Service and theNigerian Customs Service would go for debt servicing.
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Fielding question on the possibility of a fresh downturn, Ahmed asserted, “Very clearly, the Gross Domestic Product has been reduced because of the economic crisis that we found ourselves in. But Nigeria is not alone in this.
“The global economy is predicted to also be slipping into recession. What we are hoping to do by our own collective efforts – the executive and the National Assembly – isto minimisethe impact.”
The projected revenue for the NCS was pruned from N1.5tn to N950bn, FIRS’ stamp duty income of N463bn went down to N200bn,while theN1.222tn earmarked for NNPC’s federally funded projects was cut to N484bn.
