Federal government has approved 2023 to 2025 medium-term expenditure framework (MTEF). The minister of finance, budget, and national planning, Zainab Ahmed disclosed this yesterday after the federal executive council meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa.
According to her, the MTEF will be forwarded to the National Assembly next week. Ahmed said the government is projecting that the nominal GDP, the size of Nigeria’s economy will rise to N225.5 trillion.
She said, “The assumptions that we made for the next medium-term framework from 2023 to 2025 is that crude oil price will be at $70 bpd for 2023, $66 for 2024, and $62 bpd for 2025.
“Crude oil production is projected to be 1.69million bpd for 2023 and 1.813million bpd for both 2024 as well as 2025. We have also projected that the nominal GDP, the size of Nigeria’s economy will rise to N225.5trillion with 95% of this contribution by the non-oil sector while the oil sector will contribute only five percent.
“And some steady increase from 2024 2025 to reach up to N280.70trillion in 2025. This means that Nigeria continues to retain its position as the largest economy in Africa.”
The finance minister also explained the reasons why the Excess Crude account is depleting. Recall that the balance in ECA has reduced significantly from the $35.7 million it was as of June 2022 to $376,655.09 as of July 25, 2022.
She said, “On the issue of the excess crude account, in the past four years, because of volatility in the oil market, we have not had accrual to the excess crude account.
“So, what we have had, has been gradually used up for different purposes and it is always used in consultation with the National Economic Council (NEC) that is the governors because this is a federation account. The last approval that was given by the council was the withdrawal of $ 1 billion to enhance security. We have been utilizing that – the last trench of that has been finally released because deployment to security agencies is based on the contracts executed and it has been used strictly for that security purpose.
“So, the utilisation of the account is with the full knowledge of the governors.”
