2020 budget: FG pegs oil benchmark at $57, targets N8.1trn

President Muhammadu Buhari has presented the 2020 appropriation bill with total expenditure of N10.33 trillion to the national assembly.

While presenting the budget on Tuesday, Buhari said the federal government is targetting a revenue of N8.155 trillion; N2.64 trillion from oil revenue, N1.8 trillion from non-oil tax revenue and N3.7 trillion from other revenues.

Buhari said the appropriation bill is based on the new VAT rate “which will help finance health, education, and infrastructural programmes.”

Debt servicing in the budget is pegged at N2.45trn, out of which local debts would take N296bn, with N426.6bn set as overhead cost.

The oil benchmark is set at $57 at 2.18m barrels per day with capital projects gulping N2.46 trillion.

A breakdown of the budget’s statutory transfers show that the national assembly got N125 billion, the judiciary got N110bn, the National Human Rights Council (NHRC) got 2.5bn while constituency projects got N100 billion.

A total of N37.8bn was budgeted for the North-East Development Commission; N44.5bn for Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF); N112bn for Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) and N80.8bn for the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

“MDAs are not allowed to admit new projects into their provisions unless adequate provisions are made for the completion of ongoing projects,” he said.

Other provisions include: N55bn for presidential amnesty programme,  N262bn for ministry of works and housing, N127bn for ministry of power, N123 billion for ministry of transportation and N100bn for ministry of defence.

Others are N83 billion for ministry of agriculture and rural development, N82bn for ministry of water resources, N48bn for ministry of education and N46bn for ministry of health.

The ministry of industry, trade and investment got N40bn while the ministry of interior for N35bn with the social investment programmes and the federal capital territory got N30bn and N28bn respectively.