Clement Nwoji
30 October 2008
Abuja — The Federal Government has proposed a budget of N2.67 trillion for its services in 2009. The estimate is about N653 billion lower than the N3.323 trillion budgeted by government this year. Daily Champion recalls that the National Assembly had last Thursday passed the controversial N2.64 trillion 2008 budget amendment bill.
The following day. President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua presented a supplementary budget of N683.3 billion to the Senate and the House of Representatives bringing the total budget to N3.323 trillion.
However a copy of the draft budget obtained by Daily Champion showed thatN1.523 trillion has been voted as recurrent expenditure and N552.2 billion as capital expenditure. Statutory transfers and debt service got N164.3 billion and N436.2 billion respectively.
The budget provided N60 billion for the Multi-Year Tariff Order (MYTO) in the power sector as government moves to tackle the challenges of the sector N200 billion has been proposed to finance the nation's pension scheme and the on-going public service reform initiative to make it efficient.
The Minister of Finance, Dr. Shamsuddeen Usman who signed the 2009 budget circular, and sent copies to the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, all Service Chiefs Inspector-General the Police and the Secretary to Government of the Federation.
The budget has a decline of 2.6 percent in aggregate expenditure and 6.2 percent reduction in allocation to Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDA) when compared with the 2008 budget. Usman attributed the decline to the total revenue base which is smaller as a result of the fact that oil production output used for 2009 budget is 2.3 million barrels per day (mbd) as against. 2.45 mbd used in the 2008 budget..
"The oil price has been declining in recent months - from a peak of about $150 per barrel in June to $112 per barrel in August. Currently, price of crude oil at the international market has dropped below $70 per barrel", he said. The N436.2 billion earmarked for debt service is made up of N387.8 billion for domestic debt as against N66 billion in 2008 and N48.4 billion in respect of foreign debts as against N306.2 billion in 2008.
Usman voted said that the decrease in the amount provided for foreign debt service reflects in part payments made on commercial debt linked to high oil prices.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Daily Champion. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
