Nigerian Senate increases and passes 2020 budget

According to Punch Metro, the Senate on Thursday passed N10.594 trillion as the 2020 budget as against the N10.33 trillion proposed by President Muhammadu Buhari to the joint session of the National Assembly on October 8, 2019.

This Senate decision followed the adoption of the report of its Committee on Appropriation at plenary.

Presenting the report, the chairman of the panel, Senator Barau Jibrin, said the increase of N264 billion allowed for interventions in critical areas such as national security, road infrastructure mines and steel development, health among others.

Jibrin said the statutory transfer stood at N560.5bn, Recurrent Expenditure-N4.8trn, Capital Expenditure-N2.5trn, Debt Servicing-N2.7trn, Fiscal Deficit-N2.3trn and Deficit to GDP of 1.52 per cent.

He said the daily oil production stood at 2.18m barrels per day, oil benchmark was increased from $55 to $57 per barrel proposed by the Executive, while the exchange rate remained N305 per dollar.