Business
Nigeria: Buhari unveils $30.8 billion budget – infrastructure spending expected to jumpstart economy
President Muhammadu Buhari has unveiled Nigeria’s budget for 2016 as it grapples with falling oil revenues. The Buhari administration is aiming for growth of just above 4 percent.
President Muhammadu Buhari has presented Nigeria’s 2016 budget which triples investment spending in a bid to stimulate growth while seeking to lower the country’s dependence on oil.
The budget totals 6.08 trillion naira (US$30.8 billion).
Nigeria’s economy – Africa’s largest – has taken a big hit due to the fall in oil prices – which averaged US$122 a barrel in June 2014 but was now trading at around US$39 late last week. The country relies on oil for about 90 percent of its foreign earnings and 75 percent of its budget.
“Consumption has declined at all levels,” Buhari said. He said employers have struggled to pay salaries and meet other employee-related obligations, both in the public and private sector. “Small business owners and traders have been particularly hard hit by this state of affairs,” he said.
“From those who have lost their jobs, to those young people who have never had a job, to the people in the north-east whose families and businesses were destroyed by insurgents, this has been a difficult time in our nation’s history,” the Nigerian president said.
Infrastructure Spending
The biggest share of the budget would be invested in critical sectors such as power, housing, transport and defense.
Nigerians are cautiously optimistic. “Well, it’s an achievement that the country is at least presenting a budget which will give us a picture of what will happen next year,” one man said.
“What I really look forward to is security, real security, not temporary security,” said one woman from northeastern Nigeria, which has borne the brunt of the Boko Haram disturbances. “I am also looking forward to seeing the end of fluctuating electricity,” she added, referring to power outages.
