Details of the Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy which was sent to the National Assembly by President Goodluck Jonathan in Abuja on Wednesday showed that all the MDAs were provided for in 2014.
The MTEFFS showed that the capital component of the expenditure would go down from the 32 per cent achieved in 2013 to 26.22 per cent in the 2014 fiscal year.
It also indicated that a total of 712bn would be spent in the servicing of the nation's debt comprising N6.49tn domestic debt and $6.67bn as of March 2013.
The Federal Government explained that it would not save much money by reducing the number of MDAs. It added that the merger of the agencies would involve some legal processes that cannot be accomplished within a short period of time.
The document said, "It had been hoped that significant savings would be made from the implementation of government's White Paper on Rationalising Public Agencies.
"Unfortunately, very little or no savings are likely to be made from the implementation of government's White Paper on rationalising public agencies due to the fact that many agencies recommended for closure or merger were allowed to remain partly due to the fact that some of them are underpinned by law, which cannot be repealed in the short run."
According to the government, the reduction in capital expenditure is explained by the fact that revenue will dip in 2014 and capital projects will be affected.
The government also raised the alarm that recurrent expenditure was drying up the resources required for the development of the nation, adding that the quest for higher emoluments by public sector workers was unsustainable.
The MTEFFS paper said, "Between 2011 and 2013, we were able to reduce the share of recurrent spending to about 68 per cent and raise capital to 32 per cent. However, because of the new challenges occasioned by the projected significant reduction in revenue in 2014, there will be a temporary dip in the share of capital spending to about 26.22 per cent. This is because the brunt of the shortfall in revenue is borne by capital expenditure.
"It is essential to note that the level of outlay of personnel cost is crowding out expenditure on capital spending needed to develop the nation and constitutes a major drain on public resources. Even now, there continues to be pressure demand for higher emoluments, pensions, etc. This is clearly unsustainable and would need to be addressed."
The government warned that if the increasing emoluments were not checked,it would spend higher share of available resources on salaries and allowances of workers that have little or no work to do due to lack of capital.
The government also disclosed that increasing oil theft had had negative impact on the implementation of the 2013 budget, adding that a worsening of the problem in 2014 would exacerbate the challenge of meeting oil revenue projection.
It also said that the delay in passing the Petroleum Industry Bill was affecting the auctioning of new oil acreages with the resultant non realisation of signature bonuses that had been reckoned as part of the sources of revenue to the government.
The government hinted that efforts would be made to increase the contribution of tax revenues.
The Federal Government pegged new borrowing in 2014 at N572bn, slightly lower than the N577bn stipulated for 2013.
However, the cost of debt servicing will go up from the N591.76bn in 2013 to N712bn in 2014. This is made up of N663.61bn for servicing domestic debt and N48.39bn for servicing the foreign component.
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