PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan will, today, present the 2014 budget estimates of N4.77 trillion before the joint session of both Senate and the House of Representatives.
Though the president had earlier asked the National Assembly to allow him present the budget on November 12, the presentation was shelved due to the non-conclusion of 2014-2016 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP), which had now been passed by both chambers with noticeable difference in crude oil benchmark.
According to the MTEF and FSP document, “the 2014 budget is predicated on crude oil production of 2.3883 million barrels per day (bpd) with a benchmark price of $74 per barrel and a projection of aggregate expenditure of N4.77 trillion, of which the capital expenditure is N1.45 trillion.
“New borrowing of N572 billion projected for 2014 would increase the total of local and foreign debt to N8.25 trillion from N7.11 trillion in 2013.”
Already, there were sharp differences in the figure of $74 per barrel of crude oil with $76.5 passed by the Senate and $79 passed by the House last week Thursday.
This came just as sources within the National Assembly confided in the Nigerian Tribune that the leadership of the House was working to appease some members of the opposition in the House and those of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) loyal to the Alhaji Abubakar Kawu Baraje-led faction, who were set to cause trouble over alleged poor implementation of 2013 capital budget.
It was gathered that the Speaker, Honourable Aminu Tambuwal and some members of the leadership from PDP had pleaded with their colleagues to allow the president to perform his constitutional duty, as spelt out in the 1999 Constitution as amended.
Some members of the House, it was gathered, had planned to challenge the president on alleged poor implementation of 2013 capital budget, a situation that might snowballed into disruption of the event.
Source: Tribune
