Buhari signs 2020 budget today

President Muhammadu Buhari will today herald a new phase in Nigeria’s budgeting system as he signs the 2020 Appropriation Bill into law before the current year, 2019, runs out.

The president will sign the bill at the presidential villa, Abuja. The ceremony, which holds at 3pm, will be witnessed by the Senate President, Senator Ahmed Lawan, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, and the chairmen of the appropriations committees of both the Senate and Lower House.

The signing of the budget is among the key activities lined up for the president today.

Before now, the budget is usually late passed by the National Assembly and also presidential assent. Most times, the budget is passed between May and June, six months into the new year. The development has affected led to poor budget implementation by various administrations.

With the signing of the budget today, Nigeria will revert to the January to December budget cycle.

The Senate of the 9^th National Assembly, which made the country’s return to the January-December a cardinal programme, had passed the 2020 budget of N10.594 trillion two months after President Buhari  submitted the document to the legislature.

The passage of the budget followed the consideration and adoption of the report of the Senate Committee on Appropriation by its chairman, Senator Barau Jibrin.

While presenting the report at plenary on Thursday, December 5, 2019, Jibrin said that the committee adopted the 2020-2022 Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) as approved by the National Assembly.

The breakdown of the budget puts aggregate expenditure at N10.594 trillion, statutory transfers at N560 billion, debt service at N2.725 trillion, recurrent expenditure at N4.842 trillion, capital expenditure at N2.465 trillion, fiscal deficit at N2.28 trillion, and deficit/GDP at 1.52 per cent.

The lawmakers adopted a daily crude production rate of 2.18 million barrels as proposed by the executive but raised the oil benchmark to $57 as against the executive $55 submitted by Buhari.