By Audrey Lotechukwu
FRI, JULY 10 2020-theG&BJournal– President Muhammadu Buhari today at the State House, Abuja signed into law the Appropriation Repeal and Amendment Act 2020-the N10.805 trillion revised 2020 budget- into law, and signalled his intention to ensure that all Ministries receive 50% of their capital budget by the end of July. As of May 31, 2020, the Federal Government has released a total of N253 billion for implementation of capital projects.
The President, while signing the budget also assured of his administration’s intention to stick strictly with the January-December budget cycle.
The new budget is N296 billion higher than the N10.509 trillion passed by the National Assembly in December 2019 after its initial submission by the President in October 2019 and well before the COVID-19 pandemic hit economies around the world sending oil prices crashing.
The oil price crash forced an upward review of the budget by the Presidency ‘’to adjust to new realities,’’ as the President said when he set up a Committee to review the budget.
In May 2020 the revised budget was submitted and by June 2020 the National Assembly passed the revised budget but with the addition of N296 billion.
In the revised budget, statutory transfer was increased from N398 billion to N422 billion. N2.951 trillion was approved for debt service of which domestic and foreign debts will gulp N1.873 trillion and N805.470 billion respectively while N2.9 trillion was approved as sinking funds. In all N4.938 trillion was approved for recurrent expenditure while N2.488 was allocated for Capital Expenditure.
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