Senate okays 2024-2026 MTEF, to probe tax waivers from 2015
Senate has approved the 2024-2026 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP).
The upper legislative chamber also ordered investigation into all tax waivers since 2015 and directed that waivers not directly linked to non-governmental/non-profit organisations should not be granted.
It observed that before any waiver could be approved, certain conditions must be met, adding that some people had been benefitting from the waiver over the years.
Addressing newsmen after plenary, yesterday, the Chairman, Joint Senate Committees on Finance, Appropriation, National Planning and Foreign Debt, Sani Musa, lamented that so much had been lost to waivers.
He said: “We can not continue to talk of waivers while we kill our local manufacturers. What we have today are cartels, who are not giving back to the country. We will take the bull by the horns.”
According to Musa, the customer told the Senate that the country lost about N1.3 trillion to waivers, adding that granting waivers without gaining anything does not make any economic sense.
In the report of the committees, President Bola Tinubu will borrow N7.8 trillion to fund the 2024 Budget of N26 trillion that will be presented to the National Assembly soon.
Debt servicing, in the budget, will gulp N8.2 trillion.
The report Musa presented for consideration on the floor of the Senate revealed that the Federal Government projected reduction in inflation from 27.33 per cent to 21.4 per cent in 2024.
“The total budget for the 2024 will be N26 trillion, with N16.9 trillion in retained revenue, N243.6 billion for the sinking fund, the statutory transfer for the budget will be N1.3 trillion, and N1.2 trillion for pension, gratuity and retirees’ benefits.’’
“The total recurrent (non-debt) is N10.2 trillion, Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) personal cost N4.49 trillion, capital expenditure (exclusive of transfers) N5.9 trillion, special intervention (recurrent) N200 billion and special intervention capital N7 billion comprising the aggregate of Federal Government’s expenditure of N26 trillion,” the report said.
The projected N16.96 trillion revenues to the Federal Government for 2024 is attainable with effective revenue monitoring exercise and oversight by the relevant committees of the National Assembly, The Guardian gathered from the committees.
The report added: “The projected fiscal deficit of N9.048 trillion, N10.02 trillion and N11.48 trillion proposed for the 2024, 2025 and 2026 are 22 per cent, 13.6 per cent and one per cent lower than the N11.6 trillion for 2023. The proposed strategy for the government in 2024 towards deficit financing is to increase funding from privatisation proceeds and foreign borrowing, and reduce funding from multilateral and bilateral project-tied loans and domestic borrowing.
“Federal Government’s commitment to progressively restructure its debt portfolio towards achieving a balanced domestic-to-external debt ratio is evident in the 2024-2026 MTEF and FSP.
“A significant number of the Federal Government’s revenue-generating agencies engage in arbitrary, frivolous and extra-budgetary expenditure.”
Oil benchmark is pegged at $73.6 per barrel with daily production of 1.78 million barrels per day, with an exchange rate of N700 to one United States dollar.
