The Federal Executive Council (FEC), on Wednesday, approved the 2021-2023 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper (MTEF/FSP) with N12.66 trillion budget projection for each of the three fiscal years.

Briefing State House correspondents at the end of the FEC meeting presided by President Muhammadu Buhari which lasted well over eight hours, the Minister of State for Finance, Budget and National Planning, Clement Agba, listed other projections in the budget.

These included $40 per barrel oil benchmark, oil production volume of 1.6 million barrel per day, inflation rate of 11.9 per cent, projected gross domestic growth rate of 3 per cent and revenue target of N7.50 trillion.

Agba on projected revenue for 2021 said “I spoke of the various assumptions that have been made in terms of parameters and those assumptions are what drives revenues that we get and in terms of how you are able to reflate the economy and spend helps your GDP”.

“For Nigeria, it was projected that by the end of this year we should have the GDP top at -4.42 per cent. However, with the stimulus if properly done and executed, we expect that the GDP will improve to about negative -1.8 per cent.

“So in terms of the revenue projection, for 2020 it was N5.84 trillion but for 2021 we expect that it will be N7.50 trillion.

“Even though the oil production is much lower than our capacity, because we are restricted by the OPEC Plus quota in order to get the prices at par, we have brought in 63 Government Owned Enterprises (GOE). We are bringing them into the budget in order to be able to shore up the budget by additional N2.17 trillion into the budget. Hence we are saying we are projecting a larger budget size for 2021 over and above the N10.84 trillion for the revised 2020 budget.

“When you look at the N7.5 trillion and the expectations to spend N12 trillion, yes definitely there will be gap and that gap has to be financed.

“Is the plan for borrowing payment? Yes there is. Even in the 2020 budget, we had provisions to repay debt and in the 2021, there is provision to repay debt. There is a sinking fund. We look at the ratio and ensure that we are able to pay our debts. Of course that is why we have the debt management office to run those numbers and advise us…”