The Nigerian cabinet has approved the 2022 Appropriation Bill, which will be presented by President Muhammadu Buhari to the joint session of the National Assembly on Thursday, for an Aggregate Expenditure of N16.39 trillion.
The approval was given at Wednesday’s meeting of the Federal Executive Council presided over by President Buhari.
The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, who briefed State House correspondent after the meeting said that the Council also approved some of the changes made on the 2022-2024 Medium Term Expenditure Framework.
She said that the 2022 Appropriation Bill put the crude oil benchmark at fifty-seven dollars per barrel and oil production at 1.88mbpd.
Mrs Ahmed said that the budget proposal assumed an exchange rate of N410.15/US$
The projections in the 2022 Appropriation Bill also include oil revenue of N3.15 trillion; non-oil revenue of N2.13 trillion; and the federal government’s independent revenue of N1.82 trillion.
According to the Minister, the total projected federal government revenue is N10.13 trillion.
Other proposals in the 2022 Budget proposal include Debt Service of N3.61 trillion; Statutory Transfers of N768.28 billion (including N462.53 billion capital component); personnel costs and pensions of N4.69 trillion; (inclusive of N617.72 billion for the 63 GOEs); and overhead costs of N792.39 billion; (inclusive of N451.0 billion for the 63 GOEs).
The capital expenditure proposed in the bill (inclusive of the capital component of Social Investment Programme, capital in Statutory Transfers, capital of 63 GOEs, Capital Supplementation as well as Grants and Donor funding) is N5.35 trillion(inclusive of N647.08 billion for the 63 GOEs).
Ahmed explained that the resulting deficit of N6.258 trillion will be financed by new borrowings of N5.012 trillion.
She said of this, domestic borrowing would be N2.506 trillion; foreign, N2.506 trillion); drawdowns on Project-tied Multilateral/Bilateral loans; N1.156 trillion; and Privatization Proceeds of N90.73 billion.
She said the council noted the changes in the 2022-2024 fiscal projections based on implementation of the Petroleum Industry Act 2021 and other necessary expenditures that should be accommodated in the 2022 Budget.
MTEF Adjustments
The Finance Minister said that the adjustments made on the Medium Term Expenditure Framework, MTEF, 2022-2024 included Statutory Transfers of N768.28 billion; Debt Service of N3.61 trillion and Sinking Fund for Maturing Debts of N292.71 billion Naira;
The adjustments put Recurrent Expenditure (Non-Debt) of N6.83 trillion, inclusive of N350.0 billion for the recurrent component of Social Investment Programme; and Aggregate Capital Expenditure of N5.35 trillion, inclusive of GOEs’ capital expenditure, multilateral/bilateral loan funded projects, Capital Supplementation and Grants/Aid funded projects.
She said that this represents 33% of the expenditure budget.
PIAK