We’ll reduce recurrent expenditure to 68.7% — Sambo

Vice-President Namadi Sambo say recurrent expenditure in the 2013 budget would be reduced to 68.7 per cent from the 71.5 per cent recorded last year.

He said in Minna, the Niger State capital while declaring open the National Council on Finance and Economic Development that the government’s expenditure was expected to grow by less than one per cent this year.

He said, “The reforms in public financial management have started yielding results; we are making good progress with reducing our recurrent expenditure to sustainable levels, while increasing the fiscal space for supporting capital projects.

“The recurrent expenditures will be trimmed further from 71.5 per cent in 2012, to about 68.7 per cent in the 2013 budget, while the capital vote is expected to increase to 31.3 per cent from 28.5 per cent in 2012.

“The fiscal outlook has also improved considerably from a deficit of nearly four per cent of Gross Domestic Product in 2013 to about 2.85 per cent in 2012, below the three per cent threshold prescribed under the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2007.

Sambo, who was represented by the Minister of National Planning, Dr. Shamsuddeen Usman said that the Federal Government had initiated the process of reducing waste and duplication in the functions of its agencies.