President Buhari became the first Nigerian president in
recent years to present the budget to a joint session of the National Assembly
this morning. Buhari stated that Nigeria remains committed to diversification
to build and reflate the economy. He also reiterated that the 2016 budget will
focus on addressing youth unemployment and cater for the vulnerable.
The President further added that during his administration, all
MDAs will be required to prepare and present their annual budgets on time. The
highlights of the budget saw the Ministry of Education getting a higher
allocation than the Ministry of Defence. The government plans to spend N369.9
billion on education and N294.5 billion on defence. Capital expenditure is
expected to increase from N557 billion to N1.87 trillion.
He said the government was working hard to end the current
fuel scarcity and that petrol pump price will remain at N87 per litre for now.
The senate President, Bukola Saraki said the National
Assembly is ready to swiftly pass the budget to help reflate the economy and
said the budget should deemphasize recurrent spending and focus on capital
expenditure to grow the economy.
The total proposed budget was N6.08 trillion with a $38 oil
price benchmark, which the president admitted is higher than the current prices
at the market.
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