The Federal Executive Council (FEC), Wednesday approved the draft of 2018 budget estimate to be submitted to the National Assembly soon.
Udoma Udo Udoma, the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, briefing State House correspondents after the weekly FEC meeting, said the executive would liaise with the National Assembly on the date President Muhammadu Buhari would present the budget estimate.
Though the Minister did not disclose details of the budget proposal, especially the size of the budget, the Medium Term Expenditure Framework, MTEF, submitted to the National Assembly showed that aggregate revenue to fund the 2018 budget was projected at N5.65 trillion (11.0 percent or N562.50 billion over the 2017 estimate of N5.08 trillion).
Also, 43.2 percent of this was projected to come from crude oil sources while the balance was to be earned from non-oil sources.
Aggregate expenditure was estimated at N8.6 trillion (this include grants and donor funding of N199.91 billion) which was about 15.5 percent (about N1.16trillion) higher than the of 2017 aggregate expenditure estimate of N7.44 trillion.
Asked to give details of the Appropriation Bill, especially the oil production projections and the exchange benchmark, Udoma said it was the prerogative of the President to submit the budget proposal and also give the details.
He said: “As you know, it is the President’s prerogative to submit the budget, submit the proposals and give you the details. The constitution gives that authority to the President. I will be operating above my brief if I do that, the constitution gives that authority to the President.
As I said, we are liaising with them (National Assembly) because they have to agree on the date that the president will come to address them and submit the budget. We did promise that the budget will be ready in October and it will be ready in October.”
Also asked whether it will be feasible to pass the 2018 budget in January, the Minister said “before now, we used to submit in December but now the budget is ready in October so there is a very big difference.”
