Senate approves N4.8 trillion 2012 budget

Senate approves N4.8 trillion 2012 budget
about 10 hours agoRecommend
AFTER several months of committee work, the Senate yesterday passed a budget of N4, 877,209,156,933 for the 2012 fiscal year with anoil benchmark of $72 per barrel.
Details of the budget presented by the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Ahmad Maccido and passed by the Senate showed that N372, 593, 095, 601 is for statutory transfers and N559, 580, 000,000 for debt service.
The recurrent expenditure is put at N2,425,049,954,640 while capital expenditure is N1, 519,986,106,691.
Maccido stated that the budget contains N180 billion forthe Subsidy Reinvestment Programme (SURE-P) of the Federal Government and N888 billion for fuel subsidy.
He added that the Senate raised the oil benchmark from$70 to $72, which helped to reduce the provision for deficit budget of N1.162 billion by N98billion.
He explained that the deficit is less than N1billion.
Other highlights of the budget are as follows: Crude Oil Production 2.48mbpd; Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rate 7.2 per cent: Inflation rate at 9.5 per cent and exchange rate of N155 to a dollar.
He spoke further: “It is important that in preparing the details of this bill, the committee adopted a benchmark price of $72 per barrel of crude oil recommended by the Committee on Finance.
“The Committee also adopted the Executive proposal of crude oil production of 2.48 million barrels per day and an exchange rate of N155 to US$1.”
The committee recommended that budgets should be forwarded to the National Assembly early enough for timely passage.
“It would be proper if a gap of three months is given between the time of laying and the end of the previous fiscal year. This is in line with the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007,” Maccido said.
He further advised that the conceptualisation of the budget by the Executive should be thorough before it is laid at the joint session of the National Assembly.
“This will quicken the passage and will not bring confusion among the legislators as this revised version almost did,” he added.
The Senate, which earlier dissolved into a committee of supply later resolved into a committee of the whole to consider and pass the budget.