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Tag: 2016 Budget

  • Buhari writes NASS on 2016 Budget

    Buhari writes NASS on 2016 Budget

    … To present fiscal document December 22

    President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday wrote the National Assembly, seeking permission to present the 2016 Appropriation Bill to a joint session of the Senate and House Representatives on December 22.

    The Chairman, Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Senator Aliyu Sabi, disclosed this while briefing reporters in Abuja.

    Sabi said the Senate considered the request of the President and granted him permission to present the 2016 budget on December 22 as requested.

    The presidential memo for the presentation of the 2016 budget came just as the Senate on Wednesday approved the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) submitted to the National Assembly.

    The consideration and approval of the MTEF paves the way for the presentation of the annual Appropriation Bill.

    The Senate retained the $38 per barrel oil benchmark as proposed by the executive.

    The lawmakers also approved the exchange rate of N197 to $1 as proposed by the Presidency.

     

  • 2016 budget: FG votes N500b for social welfare

    2016 budget: FG votes N500b for social welfare

    The Federal Government has earmark the sum of N500 billion for social welfare intervention programmes for 2016 fiscal year.

    The government also made a provision of N63.29 billion as the Federal Government share of the controversial oil subsidy payment for the same fiscal year.

    No provision was however made for kerosene subsidy for the year under reference.

    Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) will be funded with the sum of N241.51billion under the headline Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) Excess Crude Account (ECA) & SURE-P.

    But essential requirements to benefit from the social welfare package are evidence of school enrolment and immunization certificate.

    This is contained in the 2016- 2017 and 2018 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (PSP) submitted to the Senate for consideration and approval.

    The document read and circulated to Senators by Senate President, Abubakar Bukola Saraki is expected to be the basis for the 2016 appropriation estimate for presentation to the National Assembly.

    According to the document, the Federal Government will collaborate with state governments to institute well-structured social welfare intervention programmes such as: School feeding programme initiative, conditional cash transfer to the most vulnerable and post-National Youth Service Corps grant.

    It said that “N500 billion has been provisioned in the 2016 budget as social investments for these programmes.”

    The government said, “These interventions will start as a pilot scheme and work towards securing the support donor agencies and our development partners in order to minimize potential risks.”

    Under special intervention including cash transfer, home grown school feeding programme and micro credit loans (SMEs, market women etc) which is also covered by the social intervention programme, the government provided the sum of N300 billion for 2016, N339.05 for 2017 and N338.93 for 2018.

    The document put the arrears of 2015 Subsidy on Domestic consumption as N150 billion.

    The government had also included the sum of N108 billion as the cost of fuel subsidy to cover October to December 2015 in the recently passed 2015 Supplementary Budget of N521 billion.

    In 2015, the SURE-P gulped N0.25 billion for running cost and the sum of N20.78 billion as capital expenditure.

    The budget for the Presidential Amnesty Programme was slashed from N47.39 billion in 2015 to N20 billion in 2016.

    Provisions were not made for the programme for 2017 and 2018 fiscal years.

    Provision was made for Frontier Exploration Services to the sum of N39.88 billion.

    The budget of the National Assembly was put at N115 billion for 2016 down from N120 billion for 2015.

    The government put the sum of N50 billion under the heading of “recoveries of other misappropriated funds.”

    Still on recoveries (refunds/recoveries from Strategic Alliance contracts) N137.90 billion while NNPC/CBN N162.43 billion.

    The total under the subhead of recoveries of misappropriated funds is therefore N350.33 billion.

    On social development, the government said that job creation and social inclusion are key to the administration’s development programme as a means to reducing the rates of unemployment, poverty and inequality.

    It said that a phased social welfare programme will be created to cater for a larger population of the poorest and most vulnerable Nigerians upon the evidence of children’s enrolment in school and evidence of immunization.

    The government said that it will, in the near-to-medium-term, continue to prune the size of the federal government and its Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA) to more efficient levels without compromising efficiency and effectiveness.

    It noted that over the medium-term, however, “government will revisit the need to rationalize the agencies of government and strategically implement relevant provisions.”

    On the introduction of Treasury Single Account (TSA) the government said that the multiplicity of government accounts had made it difficult to have an accurate picture of the public financial resources.

    “Government has therefore enforced the full implementation of the TSA system. Already, this is facilitating a more effective aggregate management and control of government cash balances, which, hitherto, had been maintained in several bank(s) accounts. Government has similarly enforced the full implementation of the integrated payroll and personnel information system (IPPIS) in all MDAs, which should result in some saving,” the document said.

    The government also said that the mounting number of claims for increases in salaries and allowances including pensions and other benefits should be curtailed as part of the efforts at rebalancing the structure of government spending.

    The government said that the 2016 budget will be structured to provide a stimulus to reflect the economy by investment in key infrastructure and the development of an inclusive economic recovery.

    It said that the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio, which at 12%, is one of the lowest in the world, gives room for the fiscal expansion.

    It added however that government will ensure that additional borrowing is kept within prudent limits and channeled towards infrastructure.

    To that extent, government said that a budget size of N6.04 trillion is being proposed and federal government’s revenue is projected at N3.82 trillion implying a projected deficit of N2.22 trillion.

    It said that the ratio of capital to recurrent expenditure is envisaged to move from the current 16/84 to about 30/70 in 2016.

    It said that fiscal deficit is targeted at not more than 2.16% of GDP (about N2.22 trillion in normal terms.)

  • Fed Govt plans N6tr for 2016 budget

    Fed Govt plans N6tr for 2016 budget

    •FEC approves three-year MTEF

    THE Federal Government will spend N6 trillion next year, if the budget estimates to be presented to the National Assembly is approved as sent.

    National Assembly will get the budget estimates before the end of the month.

    Ahead of this, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) yesterday approved the N6 trillion expenditure plan under the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF).

    It was the first FEC since the cabinet was inaugurated on November 11.

    The three-hour FEC meeting approved the three-year MTEF, which pegs the oil benchmark at $38 per barrel with a 2.2 million crude oil per day production.

    Minister of Budget and National Planning Udoma Udo Udoma, who was accompanied by Minister of Information Lai Mohammed and Minister of State for Budget and National Planning Zainab Ahmed, at a news conference, said: “At today’s council, the council approved the MTEF, which sets out the policies of government over the next three years; it sets out the fundamental economic underpinning 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, saying 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, was about N5 trillion. So, we are looking at a N6 trillion budget.”

    He explained that the increase in the budget over last year would be spent on capital expenditure to address infrastructure issues.

    With the dwindling prices of oil in the international market, he said the government would increase its drive for non-oil revenue, keep down recurrent expenditure, increase efficiency in Value Added Tax (VAT) and company income taxes and resort to borrowing to fill up any remaining gap.

    His words: “We will get the funding from two sources: we are looking at trying to increase our non-oil revenue, we are looking at trying to get more money from the various government agencies, policing their collection and trying to get more money from them. We will also look at keeping down our recurrent budget; that means we are looking at savings that we can make from overheads.

    “We will look at the efficiencies from our revenue collecting agencies like the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), in terms of company income tax and VAT. And then the difference, we will have to borrow.

    “But the level of borrowing that we anticipate and we are projecting will be well within the maximum that we allow, which is three per cent of the GDP. Because we want a prudent and credible budget, so we are working on them now.

    “We are projecting almost 30 per cent capital project, up from the 15 per cent or so that it is currently. We will try and reduce overheads, but keep personnel cost. We are not going to adjust it by much. But we are expecting some savings from the IPPIS system which we are using. So, we are not cutting anybody’s salary; everybody will get their salaries.”

    He said government is working with the exchange rate approved by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

    Asked whether oil subsidy would be provided for in the budget, he said: “We are looking into that.”

    The approved MTEF, he said, would be forwarded to the National Assembly.

    He said: “Following from this, the MTEF will be submitted to the National Assembly, and we expect a feedback from them. Thereafter, we will be working to try and get the budget finalised.

    “It is when the budget is finalised that you really see the details of what we intend to do. This is just a MTEF.”

    Before the meeting started, President Buhari swore in two permanent secretaries, Olakunle Bamgbose and Mahmud Dutse.

    They were outside the country when 16 other permanent secretaries took oaths of office on November 12.

     

     

     

  • El-Rufai holds town hall meeting on 2016 budget

    El-Rufai holds town hall meeting on 2016 budget

    Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, on Saturday held a town hall meeting with stakeholders to deliberate on the proposed 2016 Budget before its formal presentation to the State House of Assembly.

    The meeting held at the General Hassan Katsina House in the Kaduna.

    The total estimate of the budget is N166bn, with a sum of N104bn voted for capital expenditure, while N62bn was earmarked for recurrent expenditure.

    In his address titled ‘Putting the people first: Back to Budget Realism,’ the governor accused previous administrations in the state of reducing the yearly budget into a “fictographic art with scarcely any relationship to reality.”

    He further alleged that huge annual budgets were approved in the past without being implemented, leaving a legacy of abandoned projects.

    The governor, who said he would always puts the people first in all his actions, maintained that the present administration is determined to make the state great again by reversing the neglect that public interest had suffered.

    He disclosed that the proposed budget contains pro-poor programs, including interventions in school feeding, planting of economic trees and waste collection, which he said, would create about 200,000 jobs.

    He said: “We have called this meeting today to present to you the broad principles informing the policy choices that are reflected in the draft 2016 budget. The budget is anchored on the commitments outlined in the Restoration Programme, the manifesto platform on which the Kaduna State APC campaigned.

    “When we formally launched our election campaign, we made it clear that the APC believes in the capacity of our people to make the best choices for themselves if they are properly educated, given decent healthcare and jobs in a secure environment.”

    El-Rufai continued: “Year after year, only the recurrent part of the budget attained perfect performance. Capital investments repeatedly suffered, sometimes reaching only 1% in some sectors or 17% performance overall. They had reduced budgeting into a fictographic art, with scarcely any relationship to reality. Huge annual budgets were approved without being implemented, leaving a legacy of abandoned projects.

    “We knew we had to reorient the whole thrust of governance, replacing it with a culture that puts the people first. Democracy construes the people as the masters; we must obey their command to improve their lives.

    “Capital investments captured in the draft budget include the Kaduna Ring Road, comprehensive security interventions in partnership with neighbouring states, textile revival and youth entrepreneurship programs, lighting up Kaduna with streetlights and the statewide Tree Planting programme.”

  • Buhari seeks senators’ cooperation on 2016 budget, poor roads 

    Buhari seeks senators’ cooperation on 2016 budget, poor roads 

    President Muhammadu Buhari last night urged senators to join the executive in fixing Nigeria’s poor roads and the railways.

    Besides, they are to ensure that Nigeria does not default on payment of projects’ counterpart funding.

    Buhari spoke at a dinner with senators at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa in Abuja.

    The dinner, which started at 8pm, was attended by All Progressives Congress (APC) National Leader Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

    It was the first of such engagements between the President and the senators since the Senate was inaugurated on June 9.

    Senate President Bukola Saraki led senators to the dinner, which started with an open session but went into a closed-door.

    On payment of projects’ counterpart funding, the President urged Senators to go as far back as four or five years and see how Nigeria defaulted in settling counterpart funding on projects. He urged them to rectify the situation.

    He said Nigeria was enjoying tremendous goodwill globally and would like the senators to sustain this with their actions and support for his administration.

    Specifically, he urged the senators to give the 2016 budget the type of consideration given to the screening and confirmation of ministerial nominees.

    Said Buhari: “We are enjoying tremendous goodwill outside this country. Whatever we do, let us have it in mind that people have confidence in this government.”

    Noting that the previous administrations enjoyed income from oil as high as $140 per barrel, the President said the product was being sold for only $38 per barrel.

    He told his guests: “The roads are dead. Those who drive between Lagos and Ibadan will have a lot of stories to tell you. Those who drive from Kaduna to Jebba may have more stories to tell. The same thing is applicable to the East-West road.”

    He added that if Nigeria could get the railways working, lives and fuel would be saved.

    Saraki thanked the President for acknowledging the efforts senators put into the screening and confirmation of ministerial nominees.

    He promised that the Senate would treat other national issues with the importance they deserve.

    “Petrol does not know APC or PDP. We will always work hard in the interest of the country in everything we do,” Saraki said.

  • Dogara seeks better funding for IDPs in 2016 budget

    Dogara seeks better funding for IDPs in 2016 budget

    The Speaker of the House Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara has urged the Presidency to make adequate budgetary provision in 2016 for the resettlement of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the country.

    He also urged President Muhammadu Buhari to forward a bill to the National Assembly for the ratification of the Kampala Treaty on Internally Displaced Persons for ratification.

    The Speaker, made the call in his remarks at the sensitization workshop on the role of the parliament in addressing the challenges of IDPs in Nigeria, organized by the House Committee on Internally Displaced Persons, (IDPs) Refugees, and Initiatives on the Northern East Geopolitical Zone.

    It was also done in collaboration with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

    About N80 billion has been garnered by the Presidential Committee on Boko Haram Victims Support Fund headed by T. Y. Danjuma, according to the Deputy Speaker, Yussuff Lasun, who spoke at the recent 2015 Inter parliamentary Union held in Geneva, Switzerland.

    He said: “Permit me to place on record, the appreciation of the House of Representatives of the efforts of President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, to end terrorism and return our IDPs back to their respective communities. In particular, the inclusion of N5 billion in the 2015 Supplementary Appropriation Bill just submitted to the National Assembly, for victims of terrorism for which IDPs, form a major part, shows responsiveness on the part of Mr. President.

    “Of course, we will expect even more support in the 2016 Budget Proposal. In this regard, we solicit the continued cooperation and support of our development partners, UN Agencies, Multilateral and Bilateral Partners, international and National NGOs, International Foundations, International Funds, Development Banking Institutions and Agencies, such as World Bank, IMF, African Development Bank, etc. The private sector organizations and Companies in Nigeria cannot be left out in this effort. We know they are doing a lot already. We thank them for their commitment and efforts so far while hoping that they will do more.

    “Today’s event offers the opportunity to restate the fact that there is no adequate legal framework for handling issues of internal displacement. Even though Nigeria at the Executive level has ratified the African Union Convention for the Protection and assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa (Kampala Convention), it has not yet been domesticated by the Legislature.

    “Therefore, permit me to call on Mr President to transmit to the National Assembly, an executive bill on this and indeed other relevant treaties for domestication.

    “However, as legislators, we have primary constitutional responsibility to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of Nigeria, and we shall in the exercise of this constitutional mandate soon be left with no option but to introduce a Bill to domesticate the all important Kampala Convention, if for whatever reason the executive is unable to send the required Bill.”

    Dogara said the House is currently processing a Bill to consolidate the anti-terrorism legislations into one document for ease of use and reference, and that the National Assembly has always supported all budgetary requests from the Executive to fight terrorism.

    Chairman of the House Committee on IDPs, Refugees and North East Initiative, Sani Zorro, in his speech noted that the over two million IDPs scattered across the country in different camps are faced with “substandard facilities, most of whom are women and orphaned children, with hunger and malnutrition as the common denominators that define their lives.”

    Statistics from the UNHCR showed that 68 percent of IDPs in Nigeria are children and there are so far about 60,000 births in the IDP campaigns across the country.

  • 2016 Budget: Buhari orders provision for basic healthcare fund

    2016 Budget: Buhari orders provision for basic healthcare fund

    President Muhammadu Buhari has directed the Federal Ministry of Finance to include the basic healthcare provision fund in the 2016 Budget.

    He spoke at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, during an event marking Nigeria’s delisting as a polio endemic country.

    The President expressed pleasure that Nigeria did not record any case of polio in the last one year.

    According to him, Nigeria is working on a revised National Health Policy, which would have the achievement of Universal Health Coverage as its main ultimate goal.

    He also commended the World Health Organization (WHO) for its consistent stewardship in Global Health Security

    He said: “The National Health Act has made provision for universal access to basic healthcare with a focus on the poor and the vulnerable as well as the basic healthcare provision funds to support its implementation.

    “I have already instructed the Federal Ministry of Finance to provide for the basic healthcare provision fund under the 2016 Budget Appropriation.”

    “For 14 consecutive months, Nigeria has not recorded any new case of polio virus. This, as I had been briefed, is the first step towards certification of Nigeria as polio virus free country by WHO in the next two years.”

    Stressing that efforts to eradicate polio from Nigeria started in 1998, the President said it has taken a lot of toll on the country in terms of human and material resources.

    He promised that his administration will not relent from saving the children from polio scourge.

    He continued: “I want to assure you that there will be no complacency, as we will maintain and improve on our surveillance system as well as raise the childhood population immunity against the polio virus to avoid any spread of the disease.

    “The federal government will sustain the current momentum and we shall continue to regard this campaign as an emergency until we are declared polio free in the next two years.”

     

  • 2016 Budget will boost economic diversification, says Buhari

    2016 Budget will boost economic diversification, says Buhari

    President Muhammadu Buhari has said the 2016 National Budget being prepared by his administration will include fresh policies and measures for the rapid diversification of the economy from its current over-dependence on the Oil and Gas sector.

    The President spoke yesterday in Abuja when he hosted the President of the Movement of the Enterprises of France (MEDEF), Mr. Pierre Gattaz and a delegation of French investors at the Presidential Villa.

    He said the policies being evolved by his administration to boost domestic manufacturing and attract greater investment to Nigeria’s agricultural and mining sectors would be fully realised in the 2016 budget.

    President Buhari urged  Gattaz and the French trade mission, which included over 50 companies with interest in manufacturing, agriculture, infrastructure development and other areas, to return to Nigeria next year to reap the advantage of the new policies.

    The President, in a statement by the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, also assured the French investors  that under his leadership, Nigeria would not fall short of international standards in the protection of foreign investments and the repatriation of returns on such investments.

    He said security and the inflow of foreign investment were intrinsically linked.

    President Buhari told the French investors, whose visit to Nigeria  was a follow-up to his recent trip to Paris, that the Federal Government was taking necessary measures to overcome the nation’s security challenges.

    He said: “Our government came into office at a time when many people had abandoned the country’s manufacturing, agricultural and mining sectors.

    “We are doing  our utmost best to encourage diversification into these sectors which can employ a lot of people and we will welcome your support in this regard.

    “Ultimately, reducing unemployment will also help to improve security because unemployment and insecurity are inseparable.”

    The President pledged that Nigeria would also welcome more French investments in its Power sector because availability of steady power supply would lead to the reopening of closed factories and the creation of more jobs.

    He also assured the delegation that his administration was tackling corruption with renewed vigour to ensure greater probity in the management of national resources.

    The MEDEF President, who spoke on behalf of the French investors, sought assurances from President Buhari  on the safety of their planned investments in Nigeria and the easing of bureaucratic bottlenecks.

     

  • PMB’s agenda and 2016 budget

    PMB’s agenda and 2016 budget

    SIR:The 2016 national budget is being awaited with a lot of hopes and enthusiasm because, it will be the first national budget to be prepared and presented by a different political party other than the erstwhile ruling Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP). The PDP has had the responsibility of crafting 16 annual national budgets from 1999 to 2015, leaving in its wake, mass poverty and high rate of unemployment.

    Nigerians did not appreciate the place of annual budgets in their lives, because they felt none within the 16 years the PDP governed Nigeria and implemented their fiscal and monetary policies. Nigerians will be looking into the 2016 budget to see in real terms, President Muhammadu Buhari’s plan for economic revival and infrastructural renewal.

    It is expected that the APC Federal Government will redirect the economy of Nigeria using the instrumentality of the 2016 budget to make our nation and its people a productive one, away from the culture of unbridled consumption.

    Although, following the timelines prescribed by the prevailing legal framework on the budgetary process, the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007, the government is already running late as the National Assembly has not been presented with the details of the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) from where the 2016 budget will be derived from. It is expected that the trend on frivolous borrowing for recurrent expenditure would be stopped and the prescription of the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007 on borrowing, only for capital projects and human development adhered to strictly in line with Part 10, Section 4 of the Act for all tiers of government.

    The federal government will need a lot of planning to pull through the challenges of economic statecraft in the light of dwindling oil revenue. Advanced nations of the world use annual budgets to transform the lives of their people. This is achieved by ensuring that the capital component of the budget takes a larger chunk of their resources.

    With the efforts the APC-led Federal government  has been making to re-kick start the infrastructural bases of Nigeria’s economy in the last three months, and the agitation by the business community and development analysts for the policy direction of the Buhari government, the 2016 budget should reduce consumption and promote development within the context of capital and recurrent budget matrix.

    The Treasury Single Account (TSA) policy introduced and being implemented by the administration for proper and streamlined public finance management will enjoy an elaborate explanation in the 2016 budget within the context of the fight against corruption and looting of the public treasury. We expect better accountability in the management of Nigeria’s public resources through diligent planning and effective and transparent budgetary process. There should be no room for the annual budget of the Nigerian people to serve as a conduit for those in public office to siphon the commonwealth of the nation leaving in its wake mass poverty, ignorance and disease.

     

    • Ugo Jim-Nwoko,

    Abuja.

  • Buhari orders reduction in 2016 Budget expenditure

    Buhari orders reduction in 2016 Budget expenditure

    President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday ordered the National Planning Commission (NPC) to go back to the drawing board and produce the framework for a 2016 national budget that will reduce recurrent expenditure and prioritize developmental projects.

    He gave the order after receiving a briefing from the Executive Secretary of the Commission, Dr. Bassey Akpanyung, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

    The President, according to a statement issued by the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, told Dr. Akpanyung and Directors of the NPC that capital projects must now be given the fullest possible priority because Nigeria cannot achieve real development without adequate investment in capital and infrastructural projects.

    “In carrying out its role in surveillance of the economy, review and appraisal of policies, the Commission should devise a plan for a realignment of the budget so that capital projects can be really prioritized,” the President directed the NPC.

    The Executive Secretary of the NPC had informed the President that Nigeria’s planning system was beset by many challenges.

    These challenges, he said, included the non-alignment of national plans with the annual budget and inadequate capacity in the departments of Planning, Research and Statistics in the various government ministries.