By Demola Abimboye
The National Assembly, NASS, today passed the N13.588trillion 2021 budget, an increase of N505 billion from the proposed N13.082trillion presented by President Muhammadu Buhari on October 8, 2020.
The package was based on oil prices of $40 a barrel and 1.86 million barrels a day of crude production.
The budget was passed by both the Senate and the House of Representatives during their special plenary held mainly to pass the budget ahead of the Christmas and New Year break.
The lawmakers, however, asked President Buhari to send a supplementary budget because of the increase in oil price in the international market, now hovering between $47 and $50 per barrel.
Key assumptions in the 2021 budget:
Statutory transfer- N496.528 billion
Recurrent expenditure- N5.641 trillion
Capital expenditure- N4.125 trillion
Debt servicing- N3.324 trillion
GDP growth rate – 3.00%
President Buhari had submitted a N13.082 trillion budget to a joint session of NASS on October 8, 2020.
Also, the Senate passed N453.2 billion as the budget of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, for the 2020 fiscal year.
The passage followed presentation of the report of the Senate Committee on Niger Delta Affairs by Senator Amos Kilawangs Bulus, Vice Chairman of the Committee, at plenary.
The Committee noted that the revenue profile of the Commission for the year 2020 comprised N12 billion revenue brought forward, federal government’s contribution of N63.506billion, N317.493billion contributed by oil companies and Nigeria Liquified Natural Gas Limited and Others; N60 billion by the Ecological Fund and N200million realized internally.
Bulus said that after due consideration, the Committee recommended that the expenditure profile of the NDDC for 2020 should include personnel cost of N27.389billion, overhead expenditure of N13.937billion; internal capital expenditure of N2.793billion and development projects at the cost of N409.080billion.
Also, the Committee recommended that the 2020 budget of the NDDC would elapse on 31st March, 2021.
All the recommendations of the Committee were approved by the Senate.
