Buhari to present 2020 budget to N/Assembly Tuesday

...as Senate raises FG’s expenditure estimates to N10.7trn

Pr e s i d e n t Muhammadu Buhari will present 2020 budget to the joint session of the National Assembly on Tuesday, Chairman, Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Adedayo Adeyeye, disclosed yesterday.

Adeyeye, who disclosed this at a news conference shortly after Thursday’s plenary, said the budget would be presented at 2 p.m.

He said it will be the first time the executive would be presenting the budget in October.

He said the National Assembly was committed to passing the budget before the end of December.

The Senate earlier yesterday approved the 2020 to 2022 MTEF and the FSP.

The approval followed the adoption of a 16-point recommendations by the National Assembly Joint Committee Finance and National Planning which considered the MTEF and FSP documents.

Part of the recommendations approved was to increase the Federal Government’s total expenditure estimates in the MTEF/ FSP from N10.002trn to N10,729.4trn.

This amounts to an increase of additional N729bn.

News Agency of Nigeria reports that the joint committee had conducted a public hearing on the MTEF and FSP on Oct 2.

Following debates by over 20 senators on the recommendations,

Senate adopted the 57dollars per barrel as crude oil benchmark price for the fiscal year 2020.

It also approved the retaining of N305 to one dollar to ensure economic stability.

It also adopted 2.18mbpd as daily crude oil production output in 2020.

It noted that the 2.18mbpd approved would be realised, given concerted effort by Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and security agencies to combat oil theft and vandalism.

It also recommended an increase in the revenue target of Nigeria Customs Service from N942.6bn to N1.5trn, given the performance of the NCS in the last nine months.

It further recommended that N557.4bn from the revenue increment of NCS be used to reduce borrowing by N200bn and increase capital expenditure.

This, it said, would help decrease the size of the budget deficit from N1.7trn to N1.5trn and also increase capital available to MDAs by N357bn from N1.01trn to N1.367trn.

It recommended the adoption of N1.5trn as the amount for new borrowing, adding that the borrowing must be tied to critical projects to increase productivity.

The committee also recommended the earmarking of 1 per cent of the consolidated revenue to finance basic health care.

It also recommended proper investigation on NNPC to ascertain the actual cost associated with the joint venture oil agreements.

Senate President Ahmad Lawan said there was the need for the Federal Inland Revenue Services to widen the tax net to generate more revenue for capital expenditure. (NAN)