In Rwanda, on the margins of the African Development Bank
(AfDB) annual meeting, she said the budget would be signed soon by President
Goodluck Jonathan.
There are concerns that public spending could balloon ahead
of February’s election and to patch up the Nigerian military’s increasingly
threadbare hardware. About 25,000 troops are thought to be deployed in the
northeast where Boko Haram guerrillas are staging attacks against civilian and
security targets with alarming frequency and are holding more than 200
schoolgirls hostage.
“Actually, this is the first time I can remember when we had
such a tight budget at this point before an election," Ms Okonjo-Iweala
told the group of about 20 fund managers and other foreign investment experts
from the US and Europe.
“It’s not perfect but we do our best. Stay with us and watch
and if anything changes, I’ll tell you,” she said.
The government’s excess crude account, a buffer fund to
stabilise oil revenue and reinforce central bank reserves, stood at 3.6bn and
would reach $5bn by the end of the year, she said.
Average crude oil production was budgeted to remain at last
year’s level of 2.3 million to 2.4 million barrels per day.
“We are expecting to do the same as last year,” she said
when challenged over the production level.
Nigeria overtook SA as the continent’s biggest economy this
year after a “rebasing” exercise to measure its gross domestic product.
A score of African countries urgently need to conduct the
same review, AfDB chief economist Mtuli Ncube said on Monday. The bank’s annual
meeting opened yesterday and continues today.
Okonjo-Iweala said she had received strong messages of
support in Kigali about Nigeria’s travails with Boko Haram. “The feedback has
been very supportive.”
Jonathan’s government has come under heavy fire,
particularly domestically, about its handling of the four-year insurgency in
which thousands have been killed. The anger has built up since the girls were
kidnapped in Chibok in mid-April.
“I think the government did its best. Maybe we didn’t
communicate about what we were doing. If people don’t know what you are doing
they assume you are doing nothing,” the finance minister said. “We have asked
for additional military spending of $381m for the (2014) budget,” she said.
“No military agrees that it has enough,” she said when asked
if the increase would make a decisive difference. Nigeria’s oncemighty armed
forces have declined in numbers, quality and material, military experts agree.
Copyright AFP
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