Nigeria’s president Muhammadu Buhari will on Thursday, October 8 present the 2021 budget to the joint sitting of the National Assembly.
This statement was contained in a letter addressed to National Assembly and read by the Senate President Ahmed Lawan on Tuesday at the resumption plenary.
It will be recalled that the Federal Executive Council on Wednesday last week had a meeting and approved a budget estimated at N13.08 trillion for the 2021 fiscal year.
The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed explained that the budget proposal was predicted on $379 exchange rate, oil benchmark of $40 barrel per day and oil production volume of 1.86 million per day.
“The budget assumptions that were presented to the council include: one crude oil, crude oil price benchmark at $40 per barrel; two, oil production at 1.86 million barrels per day; three exchange rate of N379 to $1; four, Gross Domestic Product growth target of three percent and five inflation rate of 11.95 percent”, she said.
The finance minister further explained that there is a total aggregate of N7.89 trillion and an aggregate expenditure of N13.08 trillion naira for 2021. Ahmed reiterated that there is a fiscal deficit of N4.49 Trillion that represents 3.64 percent, slightly higher what is required by the Fiscal Responsibility Act of three percent and also to report that the total capital expenditure that is projected in the budget is 29 percent of the aggregate expenditure.
The minister maintained that there is an improvement from the 24 percent of last year, although it was slightly lesser than the 30 percent that was targeted in the economic recovery.
