The Federal Government has not made any provision to spend on the fight against Coronavirus pandemic otherwise known as Covid-19 in the 2021-2023 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper (MTEF/FSP) currently before the National Assembly.

The MTEF/FSP, which is the document on which the 2021 budget proposal will be based, also did not take into account receipt of any form of grant or donation either local or foreign for the Covid-19 Intervention Fund.

A close study of the draft 2012-2023 MTEF/FSP, presented to the House of Representatives Committee on Finance by the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed by The Nation, also revealed that the document did not make provision for any form of fund transfer from special accounts of the federation for Covid-19 intervention across the country.

However, the only Covid-19 related provision in the document is about N1,484, 987, 920, 022 which the document said was amount available for MDAs capital expenditure, including N100 billion reallocation of existing capital for Covid-19.

Under the aggregate capital expenditure, while the government said that about N99.652 billion was provided for Covid-19 crisis intervention fund-incremental capital for 2020, no provision was made for the same purpose in the document for 2021.

Covid-19 crisis intervention across the federation for 2020 is expected to gulp N186, 370, 000, 000, while no provision was also made for the same purpose for 2021.

Similarly, under the government’s Recurrent non debit, other service wide vote (Covid-19 crisis intervention fund was given N213,977,880,667 for 2020, with no estimate made for it for the 2021 fiscal year.

From its share of dividend from the Nigeria Liquidified Natural Gas (NLNG), government expects a projected revenue of N198.086 billion in 2020 as against N80.377 projected for the 2020 fiscal year, while stamp duty is expected to generate about N500 billion in 2021 as against the estimated N200 million in 2020.

It was however observed that the N198 billion expected from the NLNG was listed as revenue accruing to the Federations Account like other revenue from oil, solid mineral, corporate tax, Custom duties, among others.

An overview of government expenditure framework under the 2021-2023 MTEF revealed that the government is projecting to spend about N3.124 trillion on debt servicing in 2021 and N3.496 trillion in 2022 and 2023 respectively as against N2.678 trillion projected for 2020.

Transfers to statutory agencies and other arms of government, such as the National Assembly, the Judiciary, the Independent National Electoral Commission, etc., is put at N481.410 billion for 2021 as against N428.032 billion for 2020.

New borrowing for the year 2021 is estimated at N4.381 billion, while the government is expecting a proceed of about N205 billion from privatization and N674 billion from multi-lateral, bi-lateral and project tied loans.

Also, the government expects about N825 billion from operating surplus of Government Owned Enterprises (they are supposed to remit about 80 percent of their operating surplus to the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation).

Inflation rate for the 2021 is estimated at 11.95 percent, 10.94% in 2022 and 11.02% in 2023 while the Gross Domestic Product estimated to grow at 3.00 percent in 2021, 4.68% in 2022 and 3.86 % in 2023.

The House of Representatives joint Committee on Finance, Appropriation, Budget and National Development as well as Loans and Debts began consideration of the MTEF/FSP on Thursday and are expected to conclude the consideration on Wednesday and submit a report to the House when it resumes from its annual vacation.

The relevant committees of the Senate are also expected to begin consideration of the document on Wednesday.