President Muhammadu Buhari has proposed a budget of N7.2 trillion for the 2017 fiscal year, Daily Trust has learnt.
A source told our correspondent that the Federal Executive Council
approved the 2017 Appropriation Bill yesterday during a six-hour meeting
presided over by President Buhari.
"The budget estimate that will be laid before the National Assembly
for the year 2017 is N7.2 trillion. This is what FEC approved," the
source hinted.
This is about 24 percent higher than the 2016 budget which is N6.06 trillion.
Budget and Planning Minister Udoma Udoma, who briefed State House
correspondents after the meeting, confirmed that the council approved
the 2017 budget proposal.
Udoma said the president would communicate the Appropriation Bill
to the National Assembly; while the legislature would use its discretion
to decide when it will be presented.
Meanwhile, the FEC yesterday said the 2017-2019 Medium Term
Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Sustainability Paper submitted
by President Buhari was not empty.
The Senate had recently dismissed the document, describing it as empty and not worth considering.
Udoma said after extensive consultations with the private sector, the MTEF was very well prepared by experienced experts.
He said the estimates in the document at the time of its submission
were bound to change due to the changes in the exchange rate.
But Udoma said yesterday that whenever the executive appeared
before the National Assembly to defend the document, it would engage the
legislators and explain each item.
"But the assumptions of that MTEF were assumptions which were true
and correct as of the time it was prepared in August. Naturally, the
estimates, every time you improve on your estimate based on the latest
estimates, for instance one of the issues they raised was about the
exchange rate; that we used 290 as the exchange rate, and that was the
exchange rate of the time,” he said.
The minister also stated that the implementation of the 2016 budget
had been affected by revenue shortfall. He, however, said the Federal
Government had released N800 billion for capital projects and had paid
100 percent on personnel.
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