By Tony Obiechina, ABUJA
The Minister of Finance, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, has assured Nigerians that there is no cause for alarm over Federal Government’s borrowing plan as it remains within the fiscal limits.
The minister gave the assurance in a paper titled, ‘Revenue Growth and Economic Development: Expectations for 2019’ which she presented at the Deloitte Economic Outlook conference, in Lagos on Thursday.
According to a statement by her Media & Communication Adviser, Paul Ella Abechi, the minister also explained that with the global trends in economic growth indicated risks in spite of the efforts made by the Buhari-led administration with the Economic Recovery Growth Plan, ERGP, the economic exited recession.
She said: “We have been very strategic in the management of our debts, revenues, infrastructure, and human capital. These plans and the tighter coordination, monitoring within and among Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs) with economic functions have placed us on a positive trajectory. We intend to maintain a steady course. Our borrowing is still within very good fiscal limits.
“Global trends reveal slowdown in global economic growth exacerbated by global risks. Despite these trends and pursuant to our policies in the Economic Recovery Growth Plan, we have seen the economy exit from recession and move the economy upwards on a path of sustainable, inclusive & diversified growth.”
Although she acknowledged that, “The problem we have is that of revenue, by prioritising revenue generation, the Federal Government intends to continue significant investments in human capital and critical infrastructure to sustain the growth trajectory
The Minister maintained that the nation’s revenue has been growing successfully based on government’s policies and programmes initiated to ensure that the revenue generation base is diversified.
“Historical performance analysis show that we are succeeding in growing our revenue. We have chosen to be strategic in our response and we recently launched the Strategic Revenue Growth Initiatives to achieve sustainability in revenue generation; identify new and enhance enforcement of existing revenue streams; and achieve cohesion of people and tools. Our targeted revenue to GDP ratio is 15 per cent as set out in the Economic Recovery Growth Plan.
“We will continue investing in the ERGP implementation by leveraging finance for critical infrastructure and our social investment programmes. These investments, we believe, will guarantee a sustainable future.
“In 2019 and in line with the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) 2017 – 2020, we will continue to invest resources in achieving our fiscal priorities which are: Enhancing Revenue Generation, Collection and Monitoring; Fiscal Consolidation by Optimising Priority Capital and Recurrent Expenditure; Optimising Management of both Domestic and Global Fiscal Risks; and Increased Coordination of Fiscal, Macroeconomic, Monetary and Trade Policies”, she said.
“We still need to do more to achieve higher revenue out turn as peer comparison on our ability to convert Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to revenue for capital and social investment show that we have a lot to do”, the minister added.
