The Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo- Iweala on Monday presided over the public presentation of the 2014 budget in Abuja, saying it focuses on enhancing job creation and growth.
According to her, the envisaged net collectible revenue for the 2014 is N7.50 trillion, anchored on a benchmark oil price of $77.5 per barrel.
Okonjo-Iweala, who doubles as the Coordinator of the Economy said, “The budget has been underpinned by the parameter of oil benchmark of 2.39 million barrels per day compared to 2.53 million barrel per day in 2013.
“A “benchmark oil price of 77.5 dollar per barrel, projected real GDP growth of 6.75 per cent and average exchange rate of N160 per dollar.
“Based on this, the 2014 budget envisages a net federally collectible revenue of N7.50 trillion, out of which N3.73 trillion is expected to fund the Federal Government budget.
She explained further that the figure represented a 9 per cent reduction from the N4.1 trillion in 2013, reflecting “a total of expenditure of N4.64 trillion representing about 7 per cent reduction from the N4.99 trillion budget in 2013.
“It is made up of various categories of N399 billion for statutory transfer, N712 billion for debt servicing, N2.41 trillion recurrent non-debt expenditure and N1.25 trillion for capital expenditure”.
The breakdown shows that Education sector got the lion share with N655.47 billion, followed by Ministry of Defence- N340.33 billion while Ministry of Police Affairs, and the Police Service Commission got N301 billion.
The Health sector got N262.74 billion, while the Ministry of Works had N128. 65 billion.
Others are Ministry of Power- N102.45 billion, Ministry of Agriculture got N66. 64 billion just as SURE-P got N268.37 billion.
The SURE-P allocation she said was made up of savings from the partial removal of fuel subsidy of N180 billion augmented by 2013 unspent funds of about N88.37.
According to her, the Federal Government aggregate spending of 2014 is estimated to rise to N4.91 trillion out of which N1.53 trillion set aside for capital expenditure.
The Minister projected that fiscal deficit would rise marginally to about 1.9 per cent of the GDP in 2014 budget as against 1.85 per cent in 2013.
