President Bola Tinubu has allocated a total sum of N15.81 trillion for debt servicing in his proposed 2025 “restoration budget”. Tinubu disclosed this while presenting the N47.9 trillion budget proposal to a joint session of the National Assembly on Wednesday.
He said the government is targeting N34.82 trillion in revenue to fund the 2025 budget, while adding that government expenditure in the same year is projected to be 47.90 trillion naira, including 15.81 trillion naira for debt servicing.
“The numbers for our 2025 budget proposal tell a bold and exciting story of the direction we are taking to retool and revamp the socio-economic fabric of our society. In 2025, we are targeting 34.82 trillion naira in revenue to fund the budget.
“Government expenditure in the same year is projected to be 47.90 trillion naira, including 15.81 trillion naira for debt servicing,” Tinubu said, adding “I promise we have to bring it down.”
The President noted that a total of 13.08 trillion naira, or 3.89 percent of GDP, will make up the budget deficit. Taking top position in the sectoral allocation of the budget proposal is defence and security with N4.06 trillion. Health takes N2.4 trillion while Education gets N3.5 trillion.
Tinubu further noted that inflation was projected to go down from its current 34.6 per cent to 15 per cent while exchange rate was projected to be brought down from N1,700 to a dollar to N1,500. “2025 Budget Will Reduce Inflation To 15%, Bring Down Dollar To N1,500” – Tinubu
President Bola Tinubu says the 2025 budget forecasts that inflation will decline from current 34.6% to 15% next year.
He said this during his presentation of the N47.9 trillion 2025 budget proposal to a joint session of the National Assembly on Wednesday.
The President also said that the exchange rate will improve from approximately N1,700 per dollar to N1,500. According to Tinubu, “this is an ambitious but necessary budget to secure our future.”
“The Budget projects inflation will decline from the current rate of 34.6 per cent to 15 per cent next year, while the exchange rate will improve from approximately 1,700 naira per US dollar to 1,500 naira, and a base crude oil production assumption of 2.06 million barrels per day,”Tinubu said.
He said the budget projections are based upon observations such as reduction of petroleum products importation, increased export of finished petroleum products, bumper harvest driven by enhanced security, reducing reliance on food imports, among others. Tinubu listed highlights of the budget to include defence and security – N4.91tn, infrastructure – N4.06tn, health – N2.4tn, education – N3.5tn, among others.
Nigerians are grappling with economic hardship following incessant increase in inflation and volatile exchange rate that has seen dollar exchange as high as N1,700 in recent days.
On Monday, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Nigeria’s headline inflation rate rose to 34.60% in November 2024 from 33.88% in October 2024.
The November inflation rate showed an increase of 0.72% points compared to the October 2024 inflation rate, according to NBS’s latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) report which measures the rate of change in prices of goods and services.
“On a year-on-year basis, the Headline inflation rate was 6.40% points higher than the rate recorded in November 2023 (28.20%). This shows that the Headline inflation rate (year-on-year basis) increased in November 2024 compared to the same month in the preceding year (i.e., November 2023),” the Bureau said.
Significantly, food inflation rate in November 2024 was 39.93% on a year-on-year basis, 7.08% points higher than the rate recorded in November 2023 (32.84%).
