The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), on Friday, said national debt rose from N39.6tn in December 2021 to N42.8tn in June 2022.
This was as he said the budget for the past year saw a deficit of N4.6tn, 63 per cent of the estimated deficit for the 2022 fiscal year.
Buhari revealed this while presenting the 2023 appropriation bill to a joint session of the National Assembly in Abuja.
Explaining further, he said the rising deficit was due to high debt servicing resulting from rising interest rates.
According to him, the Federal Government disbursed N1.48tn for recurrent expenditures for all its Ministries, Department and Agencies in the past year.
He argued that reducing government spending too drastically will be socially destabilising. Therefore, the regime is focused on increasing economic activity and by extension, revenue.
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