President Muhamadu Buhari stormed the National Assembly where he is presenting before a joint session of the Senate and House of Representatives, the 2023 budget proposal of N19.76 trillion.
Buhari arrived at the temporary chamber of the House of Representatives where the budget will be presented and laid at about 10:05 am in company of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and top government officials.
Buhari had written a letter to the National Assembly read both by Ahmad Lawan, president of the Senate and Femi Gbajabiamila, speaker of the House at resumed plenary on Tuesday that he would be presenting the budget on Friday (today).
Read also: Buhari Seeks return of stolen assets from Western Countries
“This is to inform the House that I will 10:00 am on Friday, October 7, 2022, formally present the 2023 appropriation bill to a joint session of the National Assembly. Please accept Mr Speaker the assurances of my highest regards. I look forward to addressing the joint session,” the letter read.
Buhari started reading his budget speech after remarks from the President of the Senate and Chairman of the National Assembly, Lawan.
The House of Representatives had on Thursday considered and approved the
2023-2025 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper (MTEF/FSP) report by the committee of finance.
It approved the aggregate federal government expenditure of N19.76 trillion; made up of Total Recurrent (Non-debt) of N8.53 trillion; Personnel Costs (MDAs) of N827.8 billion; Capital expenditure (exclusive of Transfers)
N3.96 trillion; Special Intervention (Recurrent) amounting to N350 billion; and Special intervention (Capital) of N7 billion.
The House also reduced the fiscal deficit of N11.3 trillion to N10.5 trillion for the next financial year, based on the expected savings from the subsidy regime amounting to N737.31 billion, as the federal government projected that the scheme will last only in the first six months of the year.
It approved N9.3 trillion revenue as a result of increase in the benchmark as the ceiling oil subsidy of the year in review, and the daily crude oil production of 1.69mbpd, 1.83mbpd, and 1.83mbpd for 2021, 2022 and 2023 respectively and the oil price of $73 per barrel of crude oil due to continuous increase in the oil price in the global oil market and other peculiar situations such as continuous invasion of Ukraine by Russia as that will result in saving of N155 billion.
The green chamber further approved the exchange rate of N437.57 as contained in the MTEF FSP document with continuous engagement between the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning with the view of bridging the gap between the official market and parallel market.
It equally approved: “the projected GDP growth rate of 3.75% be approved; the projected Inflation rate of 17.16%; projected New Borrowings of N8.437 trillion (including Foreign and domestic Borrowing), subject to the approval of the provision of details of the borrowing plan by the National Assembly; fiscal deficit of N10.563 trillion (including GOEs).
