Buhari to sign 2020 Budget Tuesday
President Muhammadu Buhari will on Tuesday sign the 2020 Appropriation Bill of N10.59 trillion into law.
The Appropriation Bill was transmitted to the President for his assent last week President Buhari had on October 8 presented the budget estimate to the joint session of the National Assembly. The Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, had promised that the lawmakers would pass the budget before the end of the year in order to revert the nation’s back to the January to December budget cycle. While the President had proposed N10.33 trillion, the Appropriations committees of both Chambers increased the budget size to N10.59 trillion.
The breakdown of the budget revealed that out of the N263 billion addition, the National Assembly increased its budget from N125 billion to N128 billion. The House of Representatives had passed the harmonized version, which Senate had earlier passed to ensure that the budget runs from January 1 to December 31, 2020. In the new budget, N110 billion was appropriated for the judiciary while the Niger-Delta Development Commission (NDDC) got N808 billion. The National Assembly also increased oil benchmark price to $57 per barrel as against the proposed $55 but maintained the daily crude oil production rate at 2.18 million per barrel. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Growth Rate was retained at 2.93 percent, inflation rate 10.81 percent and exchange rate 305/US$1 as proposed by the Executive. According to the Senate, N90 billion was added in the budget to cater for security challenges in the country, packages for lawmakers and support for Zamfara State.
