Buhari To Submit 2019 Budget To NASS In September

The Federal Government says it is looking into submitting the 2019 Budget proposal to the National Assembly in September.

The Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, told Daily Trust that the early submission is an attempt to restore the January to December budget cycle.

“Our aspirations is that we want to meet the requirements of the law to submit it by September but as you know the National assembly is itself away on recess and they resume by September”, she said.

Ahmed said the law encourages the executive to submit the budget by September and hopes the budget is passed by December.

The Minister also disclosed that the N1.56 trillion spent by the federal government on capital projects was the highest amount ever spent on capital projects in the history of Nigeria.

According to her, the federal government released 60 per cent of the total N2.2 trillion budgeted for capital projects in 2017.

The Minister said oil and gas sector revenue hit 95 per cent, despite production reaching the 2.3 million barrels per day projected for the year.

She noted that the increased oil revenue was largely due to increase in oil price in the international market.

Earlier in the week, Nigeria was ranked the sixth largest revenue earner among the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) member nations.

The country earned N7.93 trillion ($26 billion) from oil exports between January and July this year, OPEC revenues fact sheet report, published by the U.S Energy Information Administration (EIA), noted.

“Non-oil revenue performance was not as high as we had expected.

“Because of the recession, a lot of businesses were struggling and couldn’t perform as they should and getting taxes will be as a result of the profit declared by companies.

“Taxes collected are also indicative of the performance of businesses in the economy,” the Minister said.