Nigeria govt spent N1.5trn on capital projects in 2017, finance minister says

Kemi Adeosun, Nigeria’s finance minister, said Sunday that the country’s government spent more than N1.5 trillion on capital infrastructure in 2017.

The minister stated this via her official Twitter handle, @HMKemiAdeosun, noting that the figure is higher than what was achieved in the 2016 budget.

said the Federal Government’s debt management strategy was yielding the desired result.

“I’m pleased to note that we’re going to close the 2017 budget with capital spending in excess of N1.5tn, which is higher than what we achieved in the 2016 budget. We’re also looking forward to the passage of the 2018 budget by the National Assembly,” she wrote.

Reiterating her call on the need to diversify the country’s revenue base, the minister commended the revenue agencies for adding more than five million new taxpayers to the country’s tax base in the last two years, commending the Federal Inland Revenue Service and other Tax Authorities (at State level) for doing a great deal of work on expanding the tax base and enforcement of tax payment. “We must diversify our revenue base,” she said.

On the country’s debt, she said the management strategy focused on bringing down borrowing costs was working.

“Our debt management strategy, focusing on bringing down borrowing costs, is working. This time last year, the Federal Government was borrowing at an average cost of about 18 percent; today, it is 13 percent. We will continue to work very hard on debt service cost,” the minister said.

Despite Poor FDI, Nigeria’s Q1 2018 Capital Importation Rises To $6.303 billion

Meanwhile, capital importation into Nigeria rose for the fourth consecutive quarter since Q2 2017 as the total value of capital imported in the first quarter of 2018 stood at $6.303 billion, which is a year-on-year increase of 594.03 percent and a 17.11 percent growth over the figure reported in the previous quarter.