The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Hajiya Zainab Ahmed, has said that the Federal Government will not retrieve the 2021 budget it submitted to the National Assembly because of economic recession.
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar had urged the Federal Government to remove nonessential items in the 2021 budget proposal, such as stacodes, non-emergency travel, feeding, welfare packages, and new vehicle purchases to fight off the recession.
But speaking on Wednesday to State House reporters after the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting chaired by President Muhammadu Buhari, Ahmed said the government hopes the economy will exit recession in the first quarter of 2021 with the measures it is putting in place.
“The steps that were taken were a vigorous implementation of the Economic Sustainability Plan. You will recall that the ESP was designed to be a 12 months plan, to act as a bridge between the ERGP and its successor plan, but also it was designed specifically to help us quickly exit recession, which we had projected was going to happen.
“So, the ESP implementation is really on course, it’s focused and also the implementation of the 2020 Budget is really on course and is very focused. We have been able to release a large volume of capital funding into ministries, departments and agencies, enabling a lot of public works going on simultaneously all over the country.
“So, how we will maintain this is to make sure we continue to implement the ESP as it is planned. It will help us exit recession, it will help us reset back on the path of growth and on a road that is sustainable,”she said.
“We are not planning to retrieve the budget or to reverse the budget beyond the work of appropriation that the National Assembly is currently doing in consultation with us,” she said.
