As the National Assembly expects the submission of the 2013 budget, the Federal Government is expected to present an aggregate expenditure of N4.92tn for the fiscal year.

The proposal will be an increase of about N300bn, given that the aggregate expenditure for 2012 was N4.697tn.

The details were contained in the 2013-2015 Fiscal Framework presented to the Senate on Wednesday by President Goodluck Jonathan.

Jonathan said the 2013 fiscal year would also witness the rationalisation of the large number of federal agencies based on the recommendations of the Oronsaye committee.

He also promised to streamline the management of subsidy scheme in the light of the huge amount paid to upset the claims in 2011.

He said, “The reduction in the size of government will be achieved through stricter rationalisation of available resources including sustaining the reduction of overhead votes.

“The figure for overheads decreased from N536bn in 2010 to N266bn in 2012. It is expected to further decrease in 2013 to N230bn or 4.67 per cent of total expenditure.”

The President also said, “Other measures are being implemented including deferring the procurement of administrative capital; the establishment of a Treasury Single Account to manage cash balances better, reduce corruption as well as inefficiency in the allocation of resources.

“Government has also introduced the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System to make the process of budget preparation and execution more efficient and transparent.

“In furtherance of these reforms, government will also rationalise the large number of agencies based on the recommendations of the Oronsaye committee. Furthermore, the focus continues to be on completing ongoing projects, particularly those with high rate of return.”

On subsidy, the President noted that the efforts to streamline the scheme would include “strengthening the audit and verification process in order to improve its governance, transparency and accountability.”

He said the measures would yield full results in 2013, while the SURE-P instrument would continue to be used as an intervention window to mitigate the impact of the partial subsidy removal.

“As government continues consultations regarding future policy on subsidy, some amount is being provided for petroleum product subsidy in the 2013 budget,” he said.

On the bloated recurrent expenditure, the President said efforts were ongoing to reduce this, including the deployment of biometric verification to all agencies of government, rationalising public agencies and reducing duplication of mandates among different government agencies.

“As a result of these initiatives and in line with the trend since 2011, the share of recurrent spending in aggregate expenditure is set to further reduce from 71.47 per cent in 2012 to 68.7 per cent in 2013 while capital expenditure as a share of aggregate spending is set to increase from 28.53 per cent in 2012 to 31.3 per cent in 2013,” he said.

He said the government had pegged average oil production per day at 2.53mbpd, 2.61mbpd and 2.65mbpd for the 2013 to 2015 period given that the government had initiated plans to plug all the leakages, which had resulted in losses suffered in previous years.

Also, the Federal Government also retained the $75/barrel oil price benchmark, currently below the world market oil price.

Source: Punch/Oluwole Josiah and John Alechenu