The budget circular call for 2023 shows Nigeria would be spending more than it did in 2022. Nigeria’s total projected expenditure for 2023 is higher than the expenditure in the current year while revenue is lower than the budgeted revenue for 2022.
The 2023 budget circular, issued by the Budget Office of the Federation, kickstarts the 2023 budget process.
The revenue ceiling for the 2023 budget is projected at N8.46 trillion, including revenue from Government Owned Enterprises (GOE). This is a percentage decrease of 15.15% and a difference of N1.51 trillion compared to 2022 . The expenditure ceiling is projected at N19.76 trillion with an increase of 36.46% and a difference of N5.28 trillion over the 2022 expenditure. The expenditure is inclusive of statutory transfers, debt servicing, sinking fund, service borrowings, and recurrent expenditure.
According to the Medium Term National Development Plan (MTNDP) that sets thematic area ceilings, infrastructure has the highest allocation in the 2023 budget ceiling, constituting a total of 44.40%, public administration and security have the second highest allocation of 25.44% of the total budget ceiling.
By functions of government, the budget ceiling for economic affairs projected for 2023 gulps 53.22% of the total budget allocation of all government functions; this was also the case for economic affairs in the 2022 budget. Defense and education come second and third respectively.
On ceilings for MDAs, the federal ministry of works has the highest budget ceiling allocation of 16.61%, followed by the federal ministry of finance, budget and national planning with 15.42%. The ministry of defense follows closely with of 14.19%.
Further breakdown of the budget call circular shows personnel cost for MDAs and GOEs is projected at N4.45 trillion and N779 billion respectively. Overheads for MDAs and GOEs are projected at N451.66 billion and N451 billion respectively. Other recurrent expenditures are pensions, gratuities, and retirees benefits, service wide votes, presidential amnesty programme and TETFUND with projections of N827 billion, N1.04 trillion, N65 billion and N12. 41 billion respectively.
All GOEs and MDAs have been directed to submit their budgets no later than 2nd September, 2022 using the Budget Information Management and Monitoring System (BIMMS) for GOEs and GIFMIS Budget Preparation Subsystem for MDAs.