Budget Presented, Signed From 2016 Till Date

President Muhammadu Buhari has presented a total of N54.41 trillion as proposed budget between 2016 and 2021. However, between 2016 and 2021, a total of N55.71 trillion has been approved.

This implies that the National Assembly has raised the budget, within the period under review, by N1.3 trillion. Recall that due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria, the 2020 budget was revised: that is represented and reapproved by the government. At the initial submission, N10.33 trillion was presented while N10.59 trillion was signed into law.

Recently, the President presented a total budget of N16.39 trillion for the year 2022 to the National Assembly.

The Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, while lauding the 2021 budget for being the first to be fully implemented, said the National Assembly is committed to passing the budget before the end of year.

According to him, that feat helped the country recover from the 2020 economic recession.

This is coming after the Federal Executive Council gave its approval over a bill for an aggregate expenditure of N16.39 trillion at its weekly meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The government,at the meeting, also affirmed that its plan to do more borrowing to finance the N6.258 trillion deficit in the proposed 2022 budget. 

Earlier, the senate passed a revised version of the medium term expenditure framework (MTEF) and fiscal strategy paper (FSP) for the 2022 budget. The upper legislative chamber reduced the 2022 budget by N60 billion from N16.45 trillion sent by the president.

In July, the federal executive council (FEC) had approved N13.98 trillion for the proposed 2022 budget sum.

Timeline of Budget

After his assumption as president in 2015, Buhari presented his first a N6.08 trillion budget for the fiscal year 2016. This was the first time a president would present a budget to the National Assembly in three years. 

In the budget, capital expenditure takes N1.8 trillion, marking a significant over 300 per cent increase from the 2015 vote of N557 billion.

In May, the president signed the record 6.06 trillion budget, which was expected to stimulate the nation’s slowing economy which took a hit as the price of crude oil, Nigeria’s main export, collapsed in the global market.

By December, buhari presented a 7.928 appropriation bill for 2017 to the assembly. The budget was themed “Budget of economic recovery and growth”. The President described the 2017 budget as one focused on aggressively steering the economy from the current recession.

By September, the president directed his vice, Yemi Osinbajo, to sign the bill into law.  The signing of the record 7.44 trillion naira ($23 billion) budget came in the absence of Buhari who was on medical leave in the United Kingdom.

In November, Buhari presented to a joint session of the National Assembly a budget estimate of N8.612 trillion for the 2018 fiscal year.

The key parameters and assumptions for the 2018 budget with a deficit of N2.005 trillion as presented include an oil benchmark of $45 per barrel, oil production estimate of 2.3 million barrels per day, exchange rate of N305/$ for 2018, real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth of 3.5 per cent and an inflation rate of 12.4 percent.

Seven month later, he signed the budget, which was jacked up to N9.12 trillion into law.

In December, Buhari presented N8.83tn budget estimates to a joint session of the National Assembly for their consideration. The 2019 national budget proposal is N300bn lesser than the N9.12tn, which was the size of the 2018 budget.

However, in May, Buhari signed the 2019 appropriations bill into law with an increase of N90 billion by the national assembly.

In October, Buhari sent a 10.33 trillion naira budget to the assembly. The budget seeks to achieve a 7 percent increase in the Federal Government revenue from the estimated revenue for the 2019 fiscal year while the Finance Bill proposes an increase in value added tax rate from 5 percent to 7.5 percent. In December, the president signed the  2020 Appropriation Bill into law. The National Assembly had passed the N10.59 trillion.

At the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Buhari submitted a revised 2020 budget of 10.51 trillion naira ($29.19 billion) to Parliament for approval. The coronavirus pandemic and an oil price plunge have magnified headwinds in Africa’s biggest economy, which relies heavily on crude sales for government revenues. In June, he signed the 10.8 trillion revised budget into law.

In October 2020, the president presented the sum of N13.08 trillion as the proposed 2021 Budget estimates to the Assembly. He noted that the 2021 budget is an opportunity to consolidate on the gains of the 2020 budget. He added that the implementation of the 2020 budget was impacted by the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID19).Buhari signed the 2021 Appropriation Bill into law in December 2020. The revised budgeted expenditure is N13.59 trillion, 4 percent  (N505 billion) higher than the N13.08 trillion budgeted expenditure. In July, the President also signed the 2021 supplementary budget of N982.7 billion into law.

Kehinde Ogunyale

Reporting on the data-driven economy, and investigations.

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