2016 Budget: FEC Approves N6tr

The Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Monday approved what it termed an estimated budget of N6 trillion for the 2016 fiscal year.FEC further declared that it was working on a $38 crude oil price benchmark as well as a 2.2 million barrels a day oil production.Addressing State House correspondents after the meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari, Budget and National Planning Minister, Udoma Udo Udoma, argued that the capital expenditure would take priority over recurrent vote in the new administration’s change agenda.The minister also stated that the Federal Government was making a projection of 30 percent capital expenditure as against the current 15 percent.According to him, “Today, Council approved the Medium Term Economic Framework, which sets out the policies of government over the next years, it sets out the fundamental economic underpinning of the budget.“The highlights are as follows: we project and we are working with $38 crude oil price, we consider that to be very conservative but because of the uncertainty, we felt that we should start with a conservative crude oil price.“We are also working with 2.2 million barrels a day production, it is achievable, particularly because with the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) which we are working to achieve, we believe that, that is a modest figure that we should be able to produce something higher than that.“And so next year, we are looking at an expansionist budget, we are looking at a budget that will be N1 trillion more than last year, so we are looking at a budget of about N6 trillion. Last year’s budget, including the supplementary was about N 5 trillion, so we are looking at a N 6 trillion budget.”