The Federal Government has said that the proceeds from the proposed sale of some of the country’s national assets would be used to fund the expenditure of government as contained in the 2016 budget.

Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udo-Udoma stated this in a statement issued by his Media aide, Akpandem James, explaining that the government had lost almost half of its expected revenue this year.

According to the statement, government had mapped out key projects that would support its economic diversification agenda, but the decline in the country’s revenue had made it difficult for these projects to be executed.

Udo-Udoma explained that the unfortunate reality was  the reason the Economic Management Team urgently worked out a fiscal stimulus plan to generate large funds to be injected into the economy.

He said the funds would be injected through proceeds of asset sales, advance payment for license rounds, concession of infrastructure, and use of recovered funds among others, to reduce the funding gap.

He clarified that the primary objective of government’s fiscal stimulus plan is not to sell off all major critical national assets, but to source immediate funds to reflate the economy to the path of recovery.