Following the Senate’s endorsement of the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework 2025 – 2027 on November 22, the Federal Government had yesterday approved the 2025 budget proposal. Accordingly, President Bola Tinubu is set to present the proposed N47.96tn budget to the joint session of the National Assembly by tomorrow Wednesday, 18th Dec, 2024. The presentation that was earlier slated for today was postponed to allow the executive arm make some final adjustments.
A highly placed official in the National Assembly confirmed the postponement yesterday, which was further corroborated by the Minister of State for Agriculture, Sabi Abdullahi.
While briefing newsmen yesterday, Abdullahi said, “The budget presentation has been postponed from Tuesday to Wednesday. The executive just needs to make one or two adjustments to the budget.”
Earlier, Akpabio, had announced during a plenary session that President President Tinubu would present the budget on Tuesday at the House of Representatives chamber.
The Senate president added that plenary would begin at 10:30am to allow the lawmakers convene in the Red Chamber before proceeding to the green House chamber for the presentation.
Accordingly, the forthcoming budget presentation is expected to align with the fiscal strategies outlined in these documents.
The revised agenda indicates the importance of ensuring all necessary adjustments are made to the budget before it will be finally presented to the legislature.
The budget puts at N47.96tn as the MTEF proposed, with new borrowings of N9.22tn, the Minister of the Budget and Economic Planning, Abubakar Bagudu, informed newsmen at the Federal Executive Council meeting at the state House, Abuja.
The council approved the MTEF and Fiscal Strategy Paper on November 14, 2024. The MTEF, a document that the FG uses to outline its fiscal strategy over the years, establishes macroeconomic assumptions and targets that guide national budgeting. It also includes projections of key economic variables such as oil prices, exchange rates, and inflation and growth rates. assumptions and targets that guide national budgeting. It also includes projections of key economic variables such as oil prices, exchange rates, and inflation and growth rates.
Accordingly, the 2025-2027 period, the MTEF based its parameters like oil price benchmark of $75 per barrel, an oil production target of 2.06 million barrels per day, an exchange rate of N1,400 to the US dollar, and a GDP growth rate of 4.6 per cent. Its projected aggregate expenditure for 2025 is N47.96tn, with planned borrowing of N13.8tn, equating to 3.87 per cent of GDP.
Minister Bagudu yesterday said, “Today, the Federal Executive Council approved the budget proposals 2025 with amendments which Mr President directed following a presentation to the Federal Executive Council led by the Director-General of the Budget Office, Tanimu Yakubu.
“The 2025 framework is based on an oil price benchmark of $75 per barrel. Oil production of 2.06 million barrels per day; exchange rate of N1,400 (to the dollar). All these are already included in the medium-term expenditure framework we have presented here, which has also been approved by the National Assembly.
The Minister added, “So, the total projected revenue for 2025 stands at N34.82tn, out of which the expenditure is projected at N47.96tn, an increase of 36.8 per cent from the 2024 estimate. The deficit for 2025 is projected at N13.13tn, representing 3.89 per cent of GDP.”
He explained that comments were taken from council members and the President directed “some consequential adjustments while approving the figures.”
The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, told State House Correspondents that the National Assembly and the Executive are currently engaged in discussions and may postpone the budget presentation.
He said, “The Executive and the National Assembly are currently engaged in discussions which may culminate in the shifting of the budget presentation to the federal lawmakers to Wednesday”.
While Bagudu earlier argued that the FG would maintain the January-December budget implementation cycle, he later explained that the late signing of the budget would not disrupt the cycle.
The Minister of Economic planning added, “That, I believe, has helped improve confidence between the executive and the legislature to the extent that Mister President is determined to present the budget within 48 hours.
“It may be tough, but given all those confidence-building measures, we can’t pre-judge the National Assembly. But we believe that the National Assembly will expeditiously consider, given the track record, confidence and appreciation of the relationship with the executive, particularly with Mr President.
“However, I need to say here that our constitution has always anticipated that even if a budget is not passed by December 31, the executive can continue to incur expenditure, operate and spend money. It’s one of the ingenuities of Nigeria’s Constitution. So, while we hope that the budget will be signed, spending will be impaired because the Constitution anticipates that it could be the case that the budget may not be passed before the end of the year,” Bagudu explained.
He insisted that the country can meet and surpass the 2.06 million barrels-per-day crude oil production target in the MTEF.
“Is it achievable? I think that’s very achievable because we have done it before. Our national planning considerations were that by this time, we should have more than 3 million (barrels per day). And if you recall, NNPC has reported significant findings even outside the traditional areas of production, such as Kolmani and Nasarawa state, among others.
“So this is not too ambitious, but Mr President accepted it and is going to hold people accountable for these numbers,” Bagudu clarified.
Commenting o n the 2024 budget performance, he said, “The 2024 budget has a revenue estimate of N25.8tn as of September 30, 2024 revenue inflows amount to N14.55tn, 75 per cent of the pro-rated amount. I’m sure it’s higher now because, given that this is as of September 30, driven by a robust performance in the non-oil revenue stream and the courageous deregulation of the petroleum sector, so the nation is no longer bleeding.
“On the expenditure side, the 2024 budget forecasted an expenditure of N21tn, with N8.9tn allotted to debt service, N4.2tn on personnel and N5.86tn was released for capital expenditure, of which MDAs utilised 51 per cent for projects.”
Bagudu said budget performance on debt service is 100 per cent.
“We are not defaulting. Part of what Mr President, led by the coordinating minister of the economy, convinced the investing public and the creditors that we would never default on our obligations, including the challenging non-recourse to Ways and Means beyond the legal limits.
“Equally, the performance on personnel and pension is about 100 per cent and the capital performance is about 51 per cent,” the minister said.
