THE Federal Government is expected to spend the sum of N4.929 trillion under the 2013 budget, though it is projecting a revenue of N3.891 trillion for the same period.This is just as the government chose $75 per barrel benchmark for the 2013 budget, as against $72 in 2012, while projecting 2.48 million barrels per day production for the same period instead of the 2.3 million barrels per day upon which the 2012 budget was based. Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr (Mrs) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who joined her counterparts, Labaran Maku (Information); Mike Onolememen (Works); Chief Edem Duke (Culture and Tourism) and Dr Olusegun Aganga (Trade and Investments), at the briefing of State House correspondents, after the meeting of the Federal Executive Council (FEC), in Abuja, provided highlights of the budget.She also said the council had approved the 2013 fiscal policy framework, as government sought early submission of the budget to the National Assembly.FEC considered a memorandum on the 2013-2015 medium term expenditure framework and fiscal strategy paper, which set the broad framework and priorities of the budget. Okonjo-Iweala noted that while government was intensifying efforts to improve the implementation of the 2012 budget which, she said, was at 41.3 per cent implementation at June 20, the 2013 budget proposal would be anchored on the key goal of the 2013-2015 medium term framework.She said in order to achieve this, the resources of the country would be managed in a prudent and transparent manner, while ensuring priority was given to the key growth sectors of the economy and national security.According to her, under the proposal of the fiscal strategy paper, recurrent expenditure would decline from 71.47 per cent in 2012 to 68.66 per cent in 2013 and continue to decline in the medium term. She said within the same period, capital expenditure was expected to rise from 28.53 per cent in 2012 to 31.34 per cent in 2013 and would continue in like manner in the medium term.The minister also said the government had put 'a strong strategy for managing domestic debt,' in place, noting that the first part of the strategy was to ensure a decline in fiscal deficit and domestic borrowing from 2.85 per cent and N744.4 billion in 2012 to 2.17 per cent and N727.19 billion in 2013 respectively, with further decline up to 2015.Other decisions reached by the council included the award of contract for the transaction advisory service for the improvement of Apakun-Murtala Muhammed Airport road under public/private partnership scheme, as well as that of transactional advisory services for design, building, finance and operation on the second Niger Bridge.The works minister, Onolememen, said the council also approved the extension of the dualisation of the Kano-Maiduguri road section II from Dutse-Kwanar Huguma, a distance of 24 kilometres.
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