President Muhammad Buhari has declared that Nigeria would be increasing its investments spending to three times for the purpose of growth and in order to reduce the dependence of its economy largely on oil.
Nigeria, the largest economy is Africa has remain mainly dependent on the export of oil and with the reduction in the Global oil prices, Nigeria’s revenues have plunged as well. So in order to revive it Buhari have promised to increase the spending by around 20 per cent from 2016 to 6.8 trillion naira which is equivalent to almost $30 billion.
The president said, “Investment will be a major beneficiary, more than tripling to account for 30 per cent of the total spending. We believe that this budget, while helping industry, commerce and investment to pick up, will as a matter of urgency, addresses the immediate problems of youth unemployment and the terrible living conditions of the extremely poor and vulnerable Nigerians,” at the joint session of the National Assembly in Abuja.
Apart from this the drivers of economic development like power and housing would be getting 433.4 billion naira and transport will be getting 202 billion naira. The investments in defence are also believed to be increased due to the country’s recent increase in clashes with the terrorist outfit Boko Haram and it is likely to continue for several years.
According to IMF the economic growth in Nigeria have slowed down to four percent against more than six per cent last year. This decrease can be attributed to the constant decrease in global oil prices and the country large dependent on it. The increase in budget will help to increase the economic growth once again. But the increase in government spent would also increase the debt burden.
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