Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Senator Abubakar Bagudu, said that President Bola Tinubu had steered the economy in the right direction and was determined to stay the course.
The minister, who spoke during the defence of his ministry’s financial estimates before the National Assembly Joint Committees on National Planning led by Senator Yahaya Abdullahi and Hon. Isiaka Ibrahim, in Abuja, said the administration’s economic reforms were working, and the economy was on the path to full recovery.
The minister was accompanied to the budget defence by the Permanent Secretary, Dr Vitalis Emeka, ministry directors, and chief executives of its parastatals.
He said, “President Bola Tinubu has steered the economy in the right direction, and we are determined to stay the course.
“Under the leadership of President Bola Tinubu, and with your support, our economy has turned the bend and is facing the right direction. The Renewed Hope Agenda Strategy of once and for all confronting our decades of underinvestment is working, and the positive trajectory is being sustained.”
The minister pointed out that the country’s GDP growth of more than 3% for three successive quarters, compared to less than 1% in industrialised countries, is an indication of the increasingly positive impact of the reforms.
Listing other positive impacts to include the recovery of the economy, deficit reduction, and non-recourse to ways and means beyond legal limits from over 6.1% in 2023 to less than 4% in 2024, Bagudu said global business leaders and rating agencies had acknowledged the government’s effort.
“The reform strategy has enhanced the liquidity of the sub-nationals: States and Local Governments. FAAC allocations to all tiers of Government are on the increase. With the elimination of FOREX and fuel subsidies, among other reforms, the increase shall be sustained,” he told the legislators,” he added.
The minister assured the legislators that the Tinubu administration would generate the funds to finance the 2025 financial plans through innovative financing and line budget allocation, explaining that the President had charged the petroleum, solid mineral, and creative industry sectors with developing their potential.
Bagudu emphasised that with the help of the National Assembly, his ministry, which he said was the chief marketer of Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda and Agenda 2050 strategies, would implement innovative financing measures to expand economic activities and generate substantial revenue to fund ongoing critical infrastructures.
“As the chief marketer of the Renewed Hope Agenda and Agenda 2050 strategies, the Federal Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning is poised to intensify its innovative financing to take forward the delivery of the Renewed Hope Infrastructure, including housing, roads and railway. We shall more aggressively raise funding for our creative and high-impact programmes, including Renewed Hope Infrastructure Fund, Consumer Credit, National Agriculture Development Fund, Mortgage Fund, CNG Energy transition, Student Loans Fund, and support to NANO and MSMEs,” he said.
He explained that, in addition to the funds that would accrue from maintaining fuel and removing forex subsidies, the administration was determined to increase crude oil production beyond the estimated 2.06 barrels per day at a lower cost.
The minister said that as the Crude Oil Theft Committee ramps up its activities to contain crude theft, more funds will flow into the national treasury.
“Our ministry and agencies are leading many engagements to get more resources to finance critical infrastructures in your constituencies,” Bagudu told the legislators, explaining that there would be more spending with more revenues.
He urged legislators to pass the tax reform bills, saying their passage would smoothen the government’s path to achieving its 18% revenue-to-GDP target, assuring them that the Tinubu administration remained focused on achieving a higher growth rate that would include all this year.
He recalled that Dr. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German president, and Mr. Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister, visited Nigeria. At the same time, President Bola Tinubu visited several countries in the preceding year to project the stabilising effect of the economic reforms on the nation’s economy.
“Our country has done well. President Bola Tinubu is leading the country in the best of ways. He has charged all of us, his ministers, to work for excellence and do everything we can to ensure that the nation generates a higher level of growth that will include all. We will,” Bagudu stated.
He thanked the National Assembly for its budgetary approval of his ministry’s four parastatals, which he said helped the agencies deliver their mandates maximally.
The Co-chairmen of the Joint Committees on National Planning, Senator Yahaya Abdullahi and Hon. Isiaka Ibrahim, commended the Bagudu for the helicopter-view presentation and urged him to ensure a more appreciative implementation of the capital component of the 2025 Budget.