Headline
2024 Budget: Debt Servicing To Gulp 31% Of National Budget
The Federal Government plans to spend 61.63 per cent of its planned 2024 on personnel and debt service costs.
The personnel and pension costs of N7.78tn and the debt service cost of N8.25tn make up N16.03tn out of the N26.01tn 2024 budget.
The government would spend more on debt servicing than it would spend on paying the salaries and pensions of its workers.
Also, the amount budgeted for personnel and pension costs is expected to increase from N5.87tn in 2023 to N7.78tn in the 2024 budget.
This showed an increase of N1.91tn or 32.54 per cent amid concerns for a reduction in the cost of governance.
A 30.74 per cent increase in debt service cost from N6.31tn in 2023 to N8.25tn by 2023.
The World Bank in June 2023 stated that the Federal Government’s spending on personnel costs and debt servicing exceeded total revenues in 2022.
According to the Washington-based bank, this was the first time the Federal Government’s personnel costs and debt servicing surpassed its total revenue.
The bank added that due to this, spending on capital expenditures weakened.
According to the bank, personnel costs and interest payments on loans comprised 59 per cent of the government’s 2022 total expenditures.
The Federal Government also spent 102 per cent of its revenues on personnel costs and interest payments during the period under review.
Also, the Federal Government on Monday said it was projecting N26.01tn as expenses for the 2024 fiscal year.
This was an increase of 19.15 per cent from the N21.83tn approved in 2023.
This is as it approved the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework for 2024 – 2026.
The FG affirmed that the administration would maintain the January – December budget implementation cycle as President Bola Tinubu would soon present the 2024 appropriation bill to the National Assembly to ensure its ratification before December 31, 2023.
“The aggregate expenditure is estimated at N26.01tn for the 2024 budget, which includes statutory transfers of N1.3tn non-debt recurrent expenditure of N10.26tn. Debt service estimated at N8.25tn as well as N7.78tn being provided for personnel pension cost,” the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Abubakar Bagudu, told State House Correspondents after the Federal Executive Council meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Bagudu clarified the increased debt service, saying it was “because N22.7tn Ways and Means was securitised, meaning it became a Federal Government debt at nine per cent.”
Equally, personnel costs rose significantly due to transfers from the agreement between the Federal Government and the Organised Labour.
The Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, SAN has warned against obstructing the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) from carrying out its lawful duty .
Fagbemi’s warning is contained in a statement in Abuja.
“This is a matter of very grave concern, it is now beyond doubt that the EFCC is given power by the law to invite any person of interest to interact with them in the course of their investigations into any matter, regardless of status.
“Therefore, the least that we can all do when invited, is not to put any obstruction in the way of EFCC, but to honourably answer their invitation.
“A situation where public officials who are themselves subject of protection by law enforcement agents will set up a stratagem of obstruction to the civil and commendable efforts of the EFCC to perform its duty is to say the least, insufferably disquieting’’.
He added that running away from the law will not resolve issues at stake but only exacerbate them.
“Nigeria has a vibrant judicial system that is capable of protecting everyone who follows the rule of law in seeking protection.
“I therefore encourage anyone who has been invited by the EFCC or any other agency to immediately toe the path of decency and civility by honouring such invitation instead of embarking on a temporising self-help and escapism.
“This can only put our country in bad light before the rest of the world’’.
He said institutions of state should be allowed to function effectively and efficiently.
“I stand for the rule of law and will promptly call EFCC, and indeed any other agency to order when there is an indication of any transgressions of the fundamental rights of any Nigerian by any of the agencies’’.
NAN reports that the EFCC had on Wednesday warned members of the public that it was a criminal offence to obstruct officers of the Commission from carrying out their lawful duties.
Section 38(2)(a(b) of the EFCC Establishment Act makes it an offence to prevent officers of the Commission from carrying out their lawful duties. Culprits risk a jail term of not less than five years.
The warning , the EFCC said, became necessary against the background of the increasing tendency by persons and groups under investigation by the Commission to take the laws into their hands by recruiting thugs to obstruct lawful operations of the EFCC.
On several occasions, the anti graft agency said, operatives of the Commission have had to exercise utmost restraint in the face of such provocation to avoid a breakdown of law and order.
Some unknown gunmen have kidnapped Joshua Rogers, the ChannelsTV reporter in Port-Harcourt, the Rivers State capital.
Politics Nigeria learnt that Rogers was picked up close to his residence at Rumuosi in Port Harcourt and to an unknown destination by the gunmen around 9pm on Thursday, April 11.
The reporter was driving his official ChannelsTV branded car when the hoodlums accosted, pointed a gun at him and took him away in the same vehicle.
Rogers was said to be returning from his official assignment in Government House after a trip to Andoni for a government event when the incident happened.
Already, the gunmen were said to have contacted his wife and demanded a N30million ransom for bis release.
His cameraman confirmed the incident and appealed to his abductors to set him free unconditionally.
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