Senate to reduce N12 trillion 2023 budget deficit through Finance Act amendment

The Nigerian Senate, after rejecting the deficit budget proposal of by the Minister of finance just last week, has revealed that it plans on tackling it through an amendment of the Finance Act.

According to NAN, the disclosure was made In Abuja in Sunday, by the Chairman of Senate Committee on General Services, Sen. Sani Musa (APC Niger-East). He also noted that the FG needs to urgently look for alternative funding for the budget away from hydrocarbons.

The Senator also stated that Nigeria urgently needs to look into other areas beyond crude oil, to generate revenue to fund the budget and ultimately reduce the deficit in the budgetary provision.

“The budget of this country has been in deficit and the only thing we can do is to amend so many things in the Finance Act,” he said.

He noted that this would enable the generation of more revenues from other sources rather than depending on oil alone and by extension, reduce the size of the proposed budget deficit.

He said the ninth Senate had done creditably, given the laudable bills passed to improve the economy, adding that the renovation of the National Assembly complex was also a steering achievement of the ninth Assembly.

The Senate had previously disagreed with the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning and heads of some revenue generating agencies under the ministry on the 2023–2025 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper (MTEF/FSP) which proposed a N12.43 trillion deficit and N6 trillion tax and import duty waivers in the N19.76 trillion budget.

Ahmed had told the committee that the proposed N19.76 trillion budget for 2023 would have a deficit of N12.43 trillion as a result of projected N6 trillion tax credit and import duty waivers as well as fuel subsidy of over N6 trillion if retained for the whole year.