She said the proposed budget would focus more on job creation and inclusive growth, in line with the transformation agenda of the President Goodluck Jonathan-led administration. Giving a breakdown of the estimate, Okonjo-Iweala, said the aggregate expenditure, excluding SURE - P funds, is about N4.6 trillion, while the revenue is about N3.73 trillion.
“The capital is about N1.1 trillion and makes up about 27 per cent of the budget. The balances of
course is the recurrent; it is about 72 per cent of the budget.
“This budget is the budget for job creation and inclusive growth meaning that it’s a budget which will continue the president’s transformation agenda for several sectors of the economy. “The budget is going to support the push in agriculture. It will kickstart the housing sector where we can create more jobs.
“It is designed to our policies that would support manufacturing because jobs would be created there. Industries will also be created in solid minerals. “Job creation is the key to really solving the problems of the Nigerian economy,” she said.
“The distinguishing feature between the 2013 budget and the 2014 budget is the focus we have on really continuing the successes that we had had in 2013 on creating jobs for young Nigerians. We are going to push it.
“All the programmes that create jobs are very well supported. The SURE-P is also part of it. Community services programmes would be pushed. The Youwin programme would be pushed. “We have privatised power, but we will be working on the transmission to direct resources there.
“The distinguishing thing is that it is a continuation of what we have done before, but with more emphasis on really pushing out jobs and also supporting safety nets that can further redistribute income to poor people in the country,” she said.
FG says 2013 capital budget implementation is 64 per cent. The breakdown of the 2014 budget proposal as obtained by Nigerian Tribune showed Ministry of Finance, including service wide votes got the lion share of N1.6 trillion, followed by Ministry of Education N493.4 billion and Defence including Ministry of Defence, Army, Air force and Navy got N340.3 billion.
While Ministry of Health got N262.7 billion, office of the National Security Adviser, N110 billion, Police Formation and Commands, N292 billion, while the Ministry of Special Duties got the least budgetary provision of N157 million.
The Minister of Finance who spoke to newsmen after laying the budget before both chambers said that,”this is a budget that continues the administration’s drive and Mr President’s drive to really diversify the economy and create jobs, it is a budget for jobs and inclusive growth”.
On the SURE-P budget for 2014, the minister said that it was pegged at N268.3 billion.
On what accounted for the lower budgetary provision for year 2014, the minister said was as a result of “the losses we suffered in cleared in oil revenue which we talked about in terms of oil theft and also the losses from non oil revenues”.
She however promised that government is doing everything possible to tackle the crude oil theft and losses from non oil revenue.
FG allocates N45bn to INEC in 2014 budget. The Federal Government on Thursday also allocated N45 billion in 2014 budget to enable the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) prepare for the 2015 general elections.
The Federal Government announced the figure in the 2014 National Budget laid before the National Assembly by Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Minister of Finance. The allocation to INEC was N13 billion higher than the 2013 budget of N32 billion.
According to the budget, the National Assembly allocation is to be maintained at the 2013 level of N150 billion.
It increased the provision for debt servicing from N591.8 billion in 2013 to N712 billion in 2014.
Recurrent (non-debt) spending was slightly reviewed downwards to N2.43 trillion in the 2014 budget as against N2.80 trillion in 2013.
Personnel cost was also increased slightly from the 2013 amendment budget provision of N1.72 trillion to N1.72 trillion for 2014.
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