President Goodluck Jonathan on Friday handed over the 2014 budget to the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and the Director, Budget Office, Dr. Bright Okogu, for implementation.
The handing over was said to have followed the signing of the document on Wednesday.
Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, confirmed this to our correspondent on the telephone.
Abati said Okonjo-Iweala was not around when the President signed the budget on Wednesday, hence the need to formally hand over to her.
He said, “The President actually signed the 2014 budget three days ago. But you know that the minister of finance was not in town. So, he needed to hand over to her and the Director, Budget Office, for onward transmission. That was what he did today (Friday).”
Immediately after handing over the document to the minister, Jonathan left Abuja for Pretoria, South Africa, to take part in discussions with other African leaders on combating terrorism in the continent as well as the inauguration of President Jacob Zuma for second term.
He is expected back in the country today (Saturday).
Meanwhile, the Federal Government said it had released N130.7bn to the Ministry of Defence for military operations between January and April.
Okonjo-Iweala stated this on Friday while briefing journalists on the 2014 budget which was signed into law by President Goodluck Jonathan.
On the late passage of the budget, Okonjo-Iweala said the delay would not affect its implementation.
She explained that based on the provisions of the law, the Federal Government could incur expenditure of up to 50 per cent of the unapproved budget before it was passed into law by the National Assembly.
She added that this had provided a leeway for the government to release the N200bn that was given to ministries and agencies of the government in the first quarter of the year.
She said, “You know we have disbursed N200bn for the first quarter of 2014 based on what the law allows us to do. So, the effect of the delay may be relatively minimal.”
On the additional N53bn that was added to the budget by the National Assembly, she said the Federal Government would create a funding window to finance the increase.
She said the additional money was spread across all ministries and agencies, noting that if the increase could not be raised thorough statutory revenue sources such as taxes and customs duties, it would be added to the N571bn proposed to be borrowed to finance the budget deficit.
On the focus of the 2014 budget, she stated that many policies that would drive economic growth would be implemented in various sectors of the economy.
