Jonathan Signs N4.642trn 2014 Budget

Posted by African Examiner Featured, Latest Headlines Friday, May 23rd, 2014

Kayode Adelowokan

President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria on Friday handed over the 2014 Budget to the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and the Director, Budget Office, Dr. Bright Okogu, for implementation.

Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan

The Senate and the House of Representatives recently approved a budget for 2014 totaling N4.642 trillion (US$30.3bn) on April 9th and 10th respectively.

The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, said this while addressing journalists on Friday that the President signed the Appropriation bill into law on Wednesday.

Abati, explained that the Finance Minister was not around when the President signed the budget two days ago and which necessitated formal handing over of the document to her.

“The President actually signed the 2014 Budget two days ago. But you know that the Minister of Finance was not in town. So he needed to hand over to her and the Director Budget for onward transmission. That was what he did today”, he said.

Highlights of the budget which is N52.2 billion higher than the N4.642 trillion submitted by President Jonathan, are statutory transfers (N408,687,801,891), debt service (N712,000,000,000), recurrent expenditure (N2,454,887,566,702), and capital expenditure (N1,119,614,631,407) while the aggregate expenditure is N4,695,190,000,000.

Though the executive pegged $74 per barrel as benchmark oil price for the budget, the Senate raised it up to $77.5 per barrel as earlier agreed with the House of Representatives before the final consideration of the budget.

But other parameters like estimated crude oil production of 2.3883million barrels per day, GDP growth rate of 6.75 per cent, inflation rate of 9.5 per cent and exchange rate of N160 to one US dollar tallied with the ones approved by the Senate in the budget passed.

The co-ordinating minister for the economy and minister of finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, had, on December 19, last year, submitted the budget proposal to the National Assembly.