Admin l Friday, December 06, 2019
ABUJA, Nigeria – The Nigerian Senate, on Thursday passed the sum of N10.594 trillion as budget appropriation for the year 2020. The sum approved is about N561 billion higher than the N10.33 trillion sent to the two chambers by President Muhammadu Buhari on October 8, 2019.
President Buhari presented N10.33 budget to the two chambers along with the Finance Bill, which seeks to ammend relevant tax laws in Nigeria. Presenting the report at the plenary, Committee Chairman, Sen. Barau Jibril(APC-Kano), said the committee adopted the 2020-2022 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) as approved by the National Assembly.
He said the committee worked harmoniously with the Executive in processing the bill especially in additional revenue projection to fund critical projects.
A breakdown of the budget appropriopriation shows that Statutory transfers took N560 billion, Debt service took N2.725 trillion, Recurrent Expenditure gulped N4.842 trillion while Capital Expenditure cornered N2.465 trillion, the share of Fiscal Deficit is N2.28 trillion with a Deficit/GDP 1.52 per cent.
The lawmakers also adopted a daily crude production rate of 2.18 million barrels, as proposed by the executive and 57 dollars oil benchmark as against the executive proposal of 55 dollars.
President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, thanked his colleagues for their efforts on the budget, saying the success recorded was in conjunction with the House of Representatives.
He said the National Assembly has provided the executive what it needed to implement the budget.
Lawan expressed hope that the implementation of the budget would be faster, noting that the National Assembly would do well in its oversight functions.