14:37
The minister said the proposal was contained in the
Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) approved by
the council.
The Federal Government on Monday proposed a budget of
N6 trillion for 2016 at an oil bench mark of 38 dollars per
barrel.
The Minister of Budget and National Planning, Sen. Udoma
Udo Udoma , gave the indication while addressing State
House Press Corps after an emergency Federal Executive
Council meeting presided over by President Muhammadu
Buhari.
The minister said the proposal was contained in the
Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) approved by
the council.
"At today’s council, council approved the Medium Term
Expenditure Framework.
"This sets out the policies of government over the next three
years. It sets out the fundamental economic underpinning of
the budget.
"The highlights are as follows. We project and we are working
with 38 dollars crude oil price.
"We consider that to be very conservative but because of the
uncertainties we feel that we should start with a conservative
crude oil price.
"We also are working with 2.2 million barrels per day
production.
"We believe it is achievable, particularly because with the
passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill which we are working to
achieve, we believe that that is actually a modest figure; that
we should be able to produce something higher than that.
"And so, next year we are looking at an expansionist budget.
We are looking at a budget that will be N1 trillion more than
last year.
"So we are looking at a budget of about N6 trillion. Last year’s
budget, including the supplementary, was about N5 trillion.
"Most of the increases, all the increases actually will be spent
on capital because there is the need to increase the capital
spend because of our infrastructure issues we have to
address.’’
According to him, the plan will be submitted to the National
Assembly and a feedback expected after which the budget
will be finalised with all the details embedded.
The minister said that the funding for the budget would
come from earnings from the non-oil sector.
"We are looking at trying to get more money from the various
government agencies, policing their collection and trying to get
more money from them.
"We will also look at keeping down our recurrent budget, that
means we are looking at savings that we can make from
overheads.
"We will also look at the defficiency from our revenue collecting
agencies like the FIRS, in terms of companies income tax; in
terms of VAT, and then the difference we will have to borrow.
"But the level of borrowing that we anticipate and we are
projecting will be well within the maximum that we allow, which
is three per cent of the GDP, because we want a prudent
budget; we want a credible budget.’’
Udoma futher said that the council was working on the
exchange rate that the Central Bank of Nigeria had given for
the budget, adding that it was also looking into whether fuel
subsidy would be retained in 2016.
According to him, government is projecting almost 30 per
cent of the budget on capital projects, up from the 15 per
cent or so that it is currently.
"We will try and reduce overheads, but keep personnel cost; we
are not going to adjust it by much.
"But we at expecting some savings from the Integrated Payroll
and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) which we are using;
so we are not cutting anybody's salary; everybody will get their
salaries.’’
The minister, however, declined to mention how much of
the looted funds had been recovered by the government so
far.
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