FG to stimulate economy by N100bn capital spending in few days —Osinbajo

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has disclosed that the Federal Government of Nigeria will spend N100 billion on capital projects in the coming days as part of the 2016 budget.

He disclosed this today during the 2016 Presidential Policy Dialogue Session, organised by the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) in Lagos.

According to him, “A great effort has been made to improve non-oil revenues. This includes bringing an additional 700,000 companies into the tax net as compared to the targeted 500,000 set at the beginning of the year.”

He also told the forum that the introduction of a more flexible foreign currency regime in June had eased pressure on foreign reserves, adding that many of the states in the country were still struggling to pay salaries of their workers.

Osinbajo listed other steps taken by the Federal Government to boost the economy to include assisting states and local governments to pay workers and improving capital expenditure.

“We have had three such interventions including the latest loan of N90bn as part of a fiscal responsibility plan for States,” stressing that the interventions have helped to boost household spending, which he said  were key steps to prevent the economy from falling into deep recession.

In terms of capital expenditure, he said the government pledged to keep capital spending in the budget at a minimum of 30 per cent.

“We have already made capital releases of N332bbn, with another N100bn set to be released in the next few days,” he revealed.

Other policy instruments the Federal Government had deployed to help the economy include the Treasury Single Account (TSA) which he said “has brought transparency into inflows and outflows of government monies.”

He acknowledged the slump in Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Foreign Portfolio Investment (FDI) into the country, and decline in power generation as well as power output and gave the assurance that the challenges would soon be addressed.

He said: “Our immediate tasks to achieve our economic objectives are:  reduce fiscal and forex imbalances;  boost dollar liquidity; curb inflation;  lower interest rate and ensure lending to the real sector ; increase FDIs and FPI by sustaining enabling policies”.