Senate passes 2020 budget of N10.594 trillion

Nigerian Senate on Thursday passed the 2020 budget of N10.594 trillion into law. This is against the proposed budget of N10.33 trillion presented to the joint National Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari in October, 2019.

The passage of the budget, however, represents  record breaking and a deviation from what was obtained in the 8th National Assembly in which budget were passed almost eight months after it was presented.

The 2020 Appropriation Bill was passed into law after a clause by clause consideration of the report of the Senate Committee on Appropriations.

The Senate specifically approved N10,594,362,364,830 (Ten trillion, Five hundred and Ninety-Four Billion, Three Hundred and Thirty Naira) for the 2020 fiscal year.

The breakdown shows that N560,470,827,235 is for statutory transfers, N2,725,498,930,000 for Debt Service; N4,842,974,600,640 for Recurrent (Non-Debt) Expenditure; and N2,465,418,006,955 for Contribution to the Development Fund for Capital Expenditure for the year ending on December 31, 2020.

The budget has a Fiscal deficit of N2.2 trillion and Deficit/Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 1.52 percent.

The budget is predicated on Crude Oil production of 2.18mbpd, just as proposed by the Executive; Oil Price benchmark of 57 dollar per barrel as against US$55 proposed by the Executive, Exchange Rate of N305 to US$1; Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Inflation Rate of 2.93 percent and 10.81 percent respectively.

Capital Expenditure for Ministries, Departments and Agencies of Government  (MDAs) for the 2020 fiscal year are: Ministry of Defence N116,181,290,730; Ministry of Foreign Affairs, N7,608,141,474; Ministry of Information and Culture, N7,555,803,233; Ministry of Interior, N34,035,825,302; Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, N1,722,796,040; Ministry of Police Affairs, N15,959,986,864; Ministry of Communication Technology, N5,919,002,554; and Office of the National Security Adviser, N27,418,469,323.