Follow Us on Google
Fred Itua, Abuja
Barring any last minute change, the Senate committee on Finance, may not meet the Wednesday, October 2, 2019 deadline given it to submit its report on the 2020-2022 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP).
The Senate had last Thursday, referred the twin documents to its committee on Finance for expeditious consideration Specifically, president of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, instructed the committee to make the required legislative inputs and submit the report to Senate for final consideration today, October 2, 2019.
However, chairman of the committee, Solomon Adeola Olamilekan, declared yesterday that the report will not be ready for submission today as expected by the Senate.
Olamilekan who made the declaration on his Twitter handle, disclosed that the presentation by invited federal government agencies would be made to the committee today.
He wrote: “Shortly after the President Muhammadu Buhari Broadcast, I headed for office in Senate to continue work on(MTEF/FSP)2020-2023 as chairman of Sen Cmtee on Finance.
“I was joined by a member, Senator Ayo Akinyelure ( PDP Ondo Central), to prepare for invited FG agencies’ presentation tomorrow ( Wednesday , October 2, 2019) . All hands/ sacrifices on deck.”
The Federal Government of Nigeria in the MTEF /FSP documents, is proposing N9.12 trillion as total expenditure profile for the 2020 budget, which includes grants and donor funding of N36.39 billion .
The N9.12 trillion 2020 budget proposal is about N2 billion higher than the NN8.92 billion 2019 budget.
President Buhari in the MTEF /FSP documents, also stated that the aggregate fiscal deficit for the 2020 budget will be N2.28 trillion as against N1.92 trillion estimated and approved for the 2019 budget.
The N2.28 trillion fiscal deficit proposal, according to the president , will be partly financed by new borrowings estimated at N1.70 trillion, while about N252.08 billion will be derived from privatisation proceeds and N328.13 billion as loans secured for specific development projects.
The underlining assumptions for the budget proposals as contained in the document are $55 oil price bench mark, 2.18 million barrels oil production per day, N305 to a US dollar exchange rate, 2.93 per cent GDP growth rate, among others.
