Finance
Minister and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr. Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala, on Thursday presented the 2014 budget estimate of N4.6tr
to the National Assembly.
She laid the document on the table before the senators during their plenary, presided over by Senate President David Mark.
Mark said the action was in conformity
with section 81 of the 1999 Constitution as amended, which empowered
the President to communicate the budget to the National Assembly.
Iweala, who was accompanied to the Senate by some of her
colleagues in the cabinet and the Director-General of the Budget
Office, explained to journalists after her assignment that the
aggregate expenditure of N3.73tr was expected as revenue.
She, however, said the SURE-P fund was not part of the estimated budget.
She put the capital expenditure at about N1.1tr, which according to her, is about 27 per cent of the budget.
The balance, she added, was the recurrent expenditure, “which is about 72 per cent of the budget.”
She said, “This budget is the budget for
job creation and inclusive growth; meaning that its 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 kick-start the housing sector where we can
create more jobs; it is designed to promote our policies that would
support manufacturing because jobs would be created there.
“Industries will also be created in
solid minerals. All these support will continued to be unleashed. Job
creation is the key to really solving the problems of the Nigerian
economy.”
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