The Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Minister of Finance, Wale Edun, has said the 2025 budget would attract private investors into the country’s economy.
Wale Edun said the government of President Bola Tinubu would surpass the budget’s growth target of 4.6 percent growth per annum.
The Finance Minister stated this on Friday in an interview with Arise TV. He explained that financing the ₦49.7 trillion budget would not be a big challenge to the administration.
He pointed out that the $20 billion the government now saves since the end of petrol subsidy would aid in implementing the budget.
The budget is a statement of intent, and as I said earlier, the commitment is not to meet the budget target of 4.6 percent growth per annum. The target that we are saying will take us to where we need to get to and where President Bola Tinubu is committed to taking us is actually 5.5 percent. So we not only have to implement the budget, we have to crowd in a lot of private sector investment to ensure that we grow the economy at the rate at which we need.
So we are confident that given the work of the economic management team, given the preparation that has gone into the medium-term economic framework, that this budget will be diligently executed. And above all, it’s so important to emphasize that what is the basis of a budget? It is revenue. Where is Nigeria’s revenue headed? Up. Why? Because we have stopped, the President has stopped the hemorrhaging.
He has stopped the loss of 5 percent of GDP worth 15 to 20 billion dollars a year, and that will just be accruing and growing and available to help implement the budgets, the medium-term economic expenditure framework, and indeed the planned strategies and programs of the government of President Bola Tinubu,” he said.
While addressing borrowing concerns in the budget, Wale Edun explained that the government was taking the cheapest loans.
He also emphasized that private investors have also expressed confidence in the President’s economic policies which helped in raising dollar bonds up to $9.1 billion in a day.
He noted that while the government was committed to reducing the country’s loans, the government was taking the safest loans.
If you go to the 2025 budget proposal, you see a line there that says privatization. That’s a catch-all phrase for crowding in the private sector, whether it’s with concessions, whether it’s through private-public partnerships, whether it’s through adjusting the equity investment in joint ventures. So that is right there. In addition, the commitment is to the private sector.
The commitment is to ensuring that everything is done to encourage private sector investment in the economy. That is where the large funds are available. As for borrowing, you start with the cheapest type of borrowing. That is concessional finance. We are an IDA country. Our aim is to get out of it, but the International Development Association funding of the World Bank is virtually free, 1% over 40 years. We have taken that, we have earned that, and we’ve got the encouragement and support for the President’s programs for the macroeconomic reforms by having a full support, $1.5 billion this year from the World Bank.
In addition, you take other bilateral funding that’s available, but when you do go to the international capital market and they support you, as they did Nigeria, where we just sought to finish our borrowing program for the year, having taken advantage of the cheapest sources of funds, we now went to the open market. We asked for $2.2 billion. We started at 9 a.m. in London, offices of the investment bankers. By 12 we had $4 billion. By 4 p.m. we had $9.1 billion. It’s a sign of confidence. It’s a sign of the trust and belief in the macroeconomic reforms and strategies of the government. It was a good day for Nigeria,” Edun stated.
