08 December 2015, Abuja – The Federal Government, yesterday, unveiled 2016 budget proposal of N6 trillion, allocating 30 per cent of the budget to capital expenditure.
The proposed budget is predicated on crude oil price of $38 per barrel and crude oil production of 2.2 million barrel per day.
The Federal Executive Council, FEC, also approved and submitted the Medium Term Expenditure Framework, MTEF, to the National Assembly.
In the current budget, the government submitted a budget proposal of N4.38 billion to the National Assembly which raised it to N4.9 trillion. The 2015 budget was predicated on crude oil price of $65 per barrel and crude oil production of 2.28 million barrel per day.
The 2016 proposed budget is about N1.62 trillion or 27 per cent higher than what was proposed for the 2015 budget. The crude oil bench mark for next year’s budget is lower than the current crude oil price of $41 per barrel.
Briefing State House correspondents after an emergency meeting of the Federal Executive Council, FEC, presided by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, yesterday, Minister of National Planning and Budget, Udoma Udo Udoma, stated that in view of the current economic realities, FEC predicated the budget on $38 of barrel of crude oil as benchmark for the MTEF.
He also said that the budget is premised on the hope that Nigeria will produce a total of 2.2 million barrels of crude oil per day.
He said: “At today’s Federal Executive Council meeting, the council approved the Medium Term Expenditure Framework, MTEF, which 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 projected and we are working with $38 crude oil price, we consider that to be very conservative but because of the uncertainty, we felt that we should start with a conservative crude oil price.
“We are also working with 2.2 million barrels a day production. We believe it is achievable, particularly because with the possible passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) which we are working to achieve, we believe that the production figure is a modest figure that we should be able to produce something higher than that.
- Vanguard