NIGERIA President, Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday presented the 2020 budget, tagged ‘Sustaining Growth and Job Creation’.
Buhari made his presentation at the Joint Assembly of the Senate and the House of Representatives at about 2pm on Tuesday at the National Assembly, Abuja.
He said that due to the increase in Value Added Tax (VAT), the FG is expected to generate a total of 8.155 trillion naira in 2020.
The country is expected to generate N2.64 trillion from Oil revenue, N1.81 trillion from non oil revenue and N3.7 trillion from other revenue, totaling to the N8.155 trillion.
He added that in compliance to the debt policies that the federal government will spend a total of 2.8 trillion for debt servicing in 2020.
“We provided the sum of N2.45 trillion for debt service. Of this amount, 71 percent is to service domestic debt which accounts for about 68 percent of the total debt, the sum of N296 billion is provided for the Sinking Fund to retire maturing bonds issued to local contractors,” he said.
Buhari said the government has proposed to spend 2.14 trillion naira on capital expenditure during his presentation at the National Assembly.
He reiterated that investing in critical infrastructure is a key component of the fiscal strategy under the 2020 budget proposal and that it will also capture N318.06 billion in statutory transfers.
“Although the 2020 capital budget is N721.33 billion (or 23 percent) lower than the 2019 budget provision of N3.18 trillion, it is still higher than the actual and projected capital expenditure outturns for both the 2018 and 2019 fiscal years, respectively. However, at 24 percent of aggregate projected expenditure, the 2020 provision falls significantly short of the 30 percent target in the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) 2017-2020” He said.
He further stated that the main emphasis of the capital projects will be the completion of as many projects as possible rather than commencing new ones and that MDAs were not allowed to admit new projects into their capital budget for 2020 unless adequate provision has been made for the completion of all ongoing projects.
In a breakdown of the proposed budget, he mentioned that the key expenditure shall see the Ministry of Works and Housing take a lion share of the expenditure with a proposed N262 billion, Ministry of Power, N127 billion, Ministry of transportation N123 billion, Universal Basic Education, N112 billion, Defense Ministry, N100 billion, Zonal intervention Projects 100 billion naira, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, N82 billion.
Ministry of Water resources, N82 billion, Niger Delta Development Commission N81 billion, Ministry of Education, N48 billion, Ministry of Health, N46 billion, Ministry of Industry, trade and investment N40 billion, Ministry of North East Development Commission N38 billion, Ministry of Interior N35 billion, Ministry of Social Investment Programmes N30 billion, Federal Capital Territory, N28 billion, and Niger Delta Affairs, N24 billion.
A total of N125 billion and N110 billion have been allocated to the National Assembly and the Judiciary respectively.
President of the Senate, Ahmed Lawan urged all ministries and agencies to defend their projects before the law makers by October 2019 and that the Senate shall also ensure the passage of the budget before the end of the year.
Lukman Abolade is an Investigative reporter with The ICIR. Reach out to him via [email protected], on twitter @AboladeLAA and FB @Correction94