ABUJA – The House of Representatives yesterday read on the floor of the House, the 2020-2022 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Policy Paper transmitted by President Muhammadu Buhari in line to the provisions of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2007.

Hon. Ahmed Wase, Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives,who presided over the plenary session read the communication, in which in the letter, President Buhari in the letter solicited for expedite consideration of the Fiscal Policy documents by the House.

“It is with pleasure I submitted the 2020-2022 MTEF/FSP to the House of Representatives. Let me use this medium to express my gratitude for the much improved partnership between the Legislature and Executive in our word of making the budget process deliver better outcomes for the Nigerian people in particular I note with appreciation the commitement and support the honourable members have .

“Pursuant to the provisions of the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007, the preparation towards submission of the 2020 budget to the National Assembly is progressing well.

“The MTEF/FSP was prepared taking into account key developments in global and domestic environment. We have endeavour to ensure that forecasted revenues are realistic and also reasonably challenging in the face of our significantly constrained fiscal space.

“Planned spending has been set and proven at sustainable levels consistent with the government overall developmental objectives and set out in the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan.

“Given our shared objective offer returning the budget to predictable January to December fiscal year with effect from 2020.

“I hereby forward the 2020-2022 MTEF and FSP to the honourable House and trust that it will be expeditiously considered in order to facilitate the 2020 Nigerian budget preparation process.”

For 2020 fiscal year, Federal Government proposed the sum of N9.79 trillion as total expenditure in the 2020 budget, representing an increase of 9.75 percent over N8.916 trillion spending in the current year.

The projection includes a proposed revenue of about N7.64 trillion and a total proposed fiscal deficit component of about N2.142 trillion.

Other key assumptions of the budget for 2020 include: oil production capacity of 2.18 million barrels per day; $55 per barrel of crude oil price against $60 per barrel for 2019, and exchanged rate of N305/$.

Federal Government also projected at an average of 10.81 percent, with nominal consumption figure of about N122.75 trillion and nominal gross domestic product of N142.96 trillion while GDP growth rate was pegged at 2.93 percent against 3.1 percent proposed in the National Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (NERGP).

On the expenditure, Federal Government proposed N2.45 trillion for 2020 debt servicing against N2.14 trillion in 2019; Statutory Transfer pegged at N526.46 billion against N502.1 billion for 2019 fiscal year; and sinking fund of N296 billion against N110 billion approved for 2019.

Also, recurrent non-debt appropriation was put at about N4.57 trillion against N4.39 trillion in the 2019 Appropriation.

Breakdown of non-debt proposal

A breakdown of the non-debt proposal, includes Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) personnel cost of N2.675 trillion; Government-owned enterprises (GOEs) personnel costs (N218.8 billion; overheads for MDAs (N280.3 billion; overheads of GOEs (N146.14 billion).

Also, proposals for pensions, gratuity and retirement benefits will be about N536.72billion; transfers Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading (NBET) for power sector reform programme (N59.44 billion; Service-wide votes (N418.7 billion), and Presidential Amnesty Programme (N65 billion).

Under Special Interventions (recurrent), the sum of N350 billion was proposed for year 2020, while aggregate Capital expenditure has been reduced from N3.18 trillion in 2019 to about N2.05 trillion in 2020.

Details of the capital expenditure include capital supplementation (N234.2 billion); Statutory transfers for capital expenditure (N289.1 billion); capital allocation for special Intervention Programme (N150billion); MDAs Capital expenditure (N827.3 billion).

The capital expenditure for 10 top GOEs have been put at about N188.23 billion; grants and donor-funded projects (N36.4 billion), and multilateral/bilateral project-tied (N328.13 billion).