Nigeria's Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun, says the full and diligent implementation of the 2016 budget would help the federal government achieve recovery of slowing economic growth, to forestall the remote possibility of recession.
The minister said the focus of the Muhammadu Buhari administration was to stimulate the economy and achieve real gross domestic product, GDP, growth rate of 4.2 per cent through the 2016 budget.
Mrs. Adeosun said the present administration was equally determined to reduce the cost of governance, extract efficiencies in public service and enhance revenue collections.
With budget deficit at N2.2 trillion, or 2.16 per cent of GDP based on an estimated benchmark crude oil price of $38 per barrel, the minister said present realities and dynamics in the global oil markets, calls for preparation for further decline in oil prices.
She said the government has developed a “shadow budgeting process with tactical responses to build in the flexibility in the country’s borrowing needs”.
Mrs. Adeosun said the present administration would go ahead with its robust commitments on infrastructure development in spite of dwindling crude oil price.
She said as long as oil was available and the dollars flowed, the country kept spending, pointing out that even when prices fell, as in 2008 during the global slowdown, the spending continued, through the cash reserves in the hope of a future oil price recovery.
Now crude oil prices have crashed, and the outlook showed that prices would be “lower for longer”, she said Nigerians have been compelled to critically evaluate their expenditure on oil proceeds.
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