NASS passes 2018 budget, jacks up spending to 9.1 trillion

The Nigerian budget for 2018 was passed on Wednesday six months after President Muhammadu Buhari laid it before the National Assembly on November 7, 2017.

The long delay in passing the budget had caused friction between the Executive and legislative branches of government with each accusing the other of responsibility for the delay.

In the budget passed by the Senate and House of Representatives, the legislators increased spending from N500 billion from the proposed N8.6 trillion to N9.1 trillon

The two chambers of the National Assembly received reports of the budget from their respective appropriation committees on Tuesday.

Danjuma Goje, chairman of the senate committee on appropriation, explained that the hiking of the budget by N500 billion was effected after consulting with the executive branch of government.

Goje said the decision to increase the oil benchmark from N45 to N51 informed the jacking up of the figure.

The exchange rate of N305 to a dollar and production of 2.3 million barrels of oil per day was adopted as proposed by the executive.

The Senator said surplus funds from the increment would be spent on some projects already outlined by the committee noting that they were spread on what he termed critical sectors.

According to the report, N42.72billion will be spent on security, N57. 15 billion on the 1 per cent vote for health as mandated by the National Health Act, N106.50b billion for the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing.

Other areas are; education, N15.7 billion, Judiciary, N10 billion and Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), N44.20billion.

He added that the increment will allow for a N50.88 billion deficit reduction.

In the final breakdown, the senate passed a 2018 budget of N9, 120, 334, 988, 225 of which N530, 421, 368, 624 is for statutory transfers as against N456, 458, 654, 074 proposed by the executive.

N2, 203, 835, 365, 699 was budgeted for debt service as proposed while N190, 000, 000, 000 was budgeted for sinking fund for maturing loans.

N3, 512, 677, 902, 077 was earmarked for recurrent (non-debt) expenditure with a slight increment from N3, 494, 277, 820, 219 proposed and N2, 873, 400, 351, 825 was budgeted for capital expenditure as against N2, 427, 665, 113, 222.

The budget will have a fiscal deficit of N1, 954, 464, 993, 775 and a deficit to GDP of -1.73 per cent.

At the House of Representatives, the appropriations committee also presented its report.

Of the total, N530billion is for statutory transfers; N2 trillion for debt service; N2 trillion for sinking fund for maturing bonds and N2 trillion for recurrent (non-debt) expenditure. Capital expenditure is N2.8 trillion.

In the report, eight establishments are have their allocations placed on first line charge.

These are N110 billion for statutory transfer to the National Judicial Council, N81 billion to the Niger-Delta Development Commission, N34 billion as part payment to NDDC Outstanding Liabilities on Federal Government of Nigeria, N109 billion for Universal Basic Education, N139 billion for National Assembly and N7 billion for Public Compliant Commission.
Others are N45 billion for Independent National Electoral Commission and N3 billion for National Human Rights Commission.