Business

2023-2025 MTEF/FSP: 11.3 trillion Deficit Poses Fresh Threat To Nigeria’s Economy

Published

3 years ago

September 23, 2022

The Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and the Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) for the 2023- 2025 which received the Senate’s attention through its Committee on Finance chaired by Senator Solomon Adeola Olamilekan last week, laid bare not prospects, but challenges that would confront Nigeria in the 2023 fiscal year.

The MTEF/FSP is a policy document that speaks to the budgetary needs of the individual Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government, thus, it’s a preview of the annual appropriation to be soon laid before the joint session of the upper and lower legislative houses.

Traditionally, the presentation of the annual budget precedes the passage of MTEF/FSP at both Chambers. Though President Muhammadu Buhari was expected to present the 2023 budget in the first week of October, 2022, but for lack of space due to the ongoing N30 billion National Assembly Complex renovation, the budget documents would separately be submitted to the upper and lower legislative Chambers.

The separate submission, which President Buhari will not be physically present, was confirmed on Tuesday by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila after the resumption of lawmakers from a two-month annual recess.

The MTEF/FSP public hearing afforded the Finance Committees of lower and upper Chambers to interrogate Chief Executives of the agencies of government on the next year proposal submitted to the Budget Office of Federation before they were made available to lawmakers for legislative debate.

The week-long MTEF/FSP public debate in the Senate, DAILY POST, observed, unearthed gross under performance of some Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government, even after over 70% 2022 budgetary releases to them by the Federal Ministry of Finance. The gross under performance, particularly the revenue generating agencies, in the reasoning of Senate Committee on Finance members would put the budget deficit of N11.03 trillion at risk. The total budget for 2023, which was sighted penultimate week by DAILY POST in Abuja, stood at N19.76 trillion, out of which the Federal government would have to source for funds to finance about 60% of the total budget.

Chairman of the Committee, Senator Solomon Adeola Olamilekan after listening to presentation by some revenue generating agencies which could not meet their annual target, threatened that the National Assembly may give effect to ‘the Stephen Orosonye Report’ which recommended the merger of over 400 parastatals of government to save cost.

He urged the heads of government agencies to wake up to their responsibilities, vowing that funds must be raised to fund the deficit. He stressed the readiness of the parliament to amend the relevant provisions of the Finance Act 2021 as amended to assist revenue generating agencies of government in generating revenues.

The lawmaker insisted that the FG cannot go cap in hand to borrow, while he insisted that heads of revenue generating agencies must be creative enough to generate funds to cater for the deficit.

He said: “Heads of revenue generating agencies should look for other sources of revenue generation to reduce borrowing and ultimately the deficit in the nation’s budget.

“Any agency that fails to meet its targeted revenue generation has outgrown its usefulness and will be reduced to a department under the relevant Ministry.”

The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed had expressed concern on the budget deficit, citing the plethora of challenges confronting the nation and the inability of government agencies to generate funds.

The Minister disclosed that over 70% of the 2022 budget has been released to various government agencies, a feat she said was in line with President Muhammadu Buhari’s determination to properly fund agencies of government.

A member of the Committee and Senator representing Niger East Senatorial district, Sani Musa, pointed out that the challenges facing the oil and gas industry in Nigeria, would pose a serious handicap to the government in view of the fact Nigeria runs a monolithic economy.

Musa added that the government must begin to look away from oil and gas to other things as an alternative means of funding its 2023 budget.

“The budget of this country has been in deficit and the only thing we can do is to amend so many things in the Finance Act,” he said.

Meanwhile, the full scale oil theft in the Niger Delta, which has crippled Nigeria’s ability to meet its 2.2 million barrels of crude oil OPEC quarter, was a source of concern to all stakeholders.

DAILY POST

Business

French Media Giant Canal+ Takes Over S.Africa’s Multichoice

Published

2 hours ago

September 22, 2025

Editor

French media giant Canal+ said Monday it had taken effective control of South African television and streaming company MultiChoice, creating a group present in nearly 70 countries in Africa, Europe and Asia.

The companies said in a joint statement that the combined group will have a workforce of 17,000 employees and serve more than 40 million subscribers.

The acquisition is “the largest transaction ever undertaken” by Canal+, the statement said.

Canal+, which is already the sector’s leader in French-speaking African countries, now controls what it described as the leader in the continent’s English- and Portuguese-speaking regions.

“This acquisition allows us to strengthen our position as a leader in Africa, one of the most dynamic pay-TV markets in the world,” Canal+ chief executive Maxime Saada said in the statement.

The buyout was given a final green light by South Africa’s competition authority in late July, more than a year after Canal+ launched its bid.

Canal+ offered 125 rand ($7.2) per share for MultiChoice when it launched its offer last year, valuing the South African firm at around $3.0 billion.

Canal+ is present in 25 African countries through 16 subsidiaries and has eight million subscribers.

MultiChoice operates in 50 countries across sub-Saharan Africa and has 14.5 million subscribers.

It includes Africa’s premier sports broadcaster, SuperSport, and the DStv satellite television service.

AFP

Business

BREAKING: Nigeria’s GDP Grows By 4.23% In Q2 2025 – NBS

Published

6 hours ago

September 22, 2025

Editor

Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product grew by 4.23 per cent (year-on-year) in the second quarter of 2025, the National Bureau of Statistics revealed in its Q2 2025 GDP Report.

According to the report released on Monday on its website, the figure shows a significant improvement compared to 3.48 per cent recorded in the second quarter of 2024 and the 3.13 per cent recorded in Q1 2025.

The figures signal a strengthening economy, driven by recent rebasing, rebound in oil production and a resilient non-oil sector.

The report said, “Following the rebasing of the Gross Domestic Product using 2019 as the base year, previous quarterly GDP estimates were benchmarked to the rebased annual estimates to align the old series with the new rebased estimates

“This procedure provided a new quarterly GDP series, which is compared to the 2025 second quarter estimates. Gross Domestic Product grew by 4.23% (year-on-year) in real terms in the second quarter of 2025.

“This growth rate is higher than the 3.48 per cent recorded in the second quarter of 2024. During the quarter under review, agriculture grew by 2.82%, an improvement from the 2.60% recorded in the corresponding quarter of 2024.

According to NBS, “The growth of the industry sector stood at 7.45% from 3.72% recorded in the second quarter of 2024, while the Services sector recorded a growth of 3.94% from 3.83% in the same quarter of 2024.”

The report said in terms of share of the GDP, “the Industry sector contributed more to the aggregate GDP in the second quarter of 2025 at 17.31% compared to the corresponding quarter of 2024 at 16.79%.”

It added, “In the quarter under review, aggregate GDP at basic price stood at N100,730,501.10 million in nominal terms. This performance is higher when compared to the second quarter of 2024, which recorded an aggregate GDP of N84,484,878.46 million, indicating a year-on-year nominal growth of 19.23%.”

Details later…

Business

Why Nigeria’s Crude Oil Production Dropped To 1.63mbpd In August – NUPRC

Published

1 day ago

September 21, 2025

Editor

The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) has explained that unscheduled maintenance at a refinery facility made Nigeria’s crude oil production drop on a month-on-month basis in August.

This comes as Nigeria’s crude oil production dropped to 1.63 million barrels per day month-on-month in August, down from 1.71 million bopd in July.

NUPRC disclosed this in its Crude Oil and Condensate Production for August 2025, released on Saturday.

This means a 4.7 per cent drop in combined crude oil and condensate production from 1.71 million bopd in July.

In the same vein, crude oil production itself declined by 4.8 per cent, down from 1.5 million bopd in July 2025.

“The month-on-month drop was driven by a single-day unscheduled maintenance at an oil facility.

“In the month of August, the lowest and peak combined crude and condensate production were 1.59 million bopd and 1.85 million bopd, respectively,” NUPRC said.

The data showed that while there was a decline month-on-month, the country’s crude oil production rose on a year-on-year basis by 5.5 per cent to 1.63 mbpd in August this year from 1.58 million bopd in the same period last year.

Further analysis indicates that daily condensate production in August stood at 197,229 bpd, reflecting a decline.

Also, Nigeria’s crude oil output in August achieved 96 per cent of its OPEC quota, which is set at 1.5 million bopd.

Accordingly, in the period under review, Forcados Terminal topped the production charts, delivering a total of 8.99 million barrels, including 8.08 million barrels of crude oil and 915.2k barrels of condensates.