Henry Uche
The Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA) has raised concerns over the continuous rise in budget deficit and foreign debt.
According to its president, Saratu Iya Aliyu, re-emphasized NACCIMA’s concern over some issues raised during the presentation of the budget proposal in October 2019, noting that budget deficit has continued to rise from N1.9trillion in 2019, to N2.8trillion proposed in 2020.
Aliyu stated that external debt was estimated to increase by 64 per cent based in the 2019 budget, and 180per centbased in the 2018 Budget, while capital expenditure was 2per cent higher than the 2019 Budget and 34per cent lower than the 2018 Budget as well as Recurrent Expenditure continues which is also on the increase.
She said “it is our position that the GDP growth projection of 2.93per cent is highly optimistic but achievable. This is due to the Global Economic Outlook Report by the World Bank as at June 2019 which indicates that Global Growth was expected to weaken to 2.6per cent in 2019 and increase slightly to 2.7 per centin 2020. “This position is corroborated by the Five Year Policy Thrust of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). The World Bank expects GDP growth rate in Nigeria to edge up to 2.2per cent in 2020. We re-emphasize our position that government’s policy focus should be on increasing the level of economic activity as a way to generate revenue from taxes.”
She added that some indicators in the budget raises some concern on the revenue projections expected to fund the budget. “NACCIMA notes that the government have adopted a oil price benchmark of $57 per barrel, a daily oil production estimate of 2.18mbpd and an exchange rate of N305 per US Dollar for 2020, however, this statement appears odds with Nigeria’s current crude oil output (1.69million barrels per day).