President Buhari presents N6.08trn budget for 2016

President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday presented a national budget of N6.08trillion for 2016 before a joint session of the National Assembly. Capital expenditure gets a boost to 30%.

The budget is predicated on $38 per barrel oil benchmark; 197 Naira exchange rate.

The budget was increased by about 40 per cent from the 2014 budget of 4.357 Trillion Naira presented to the National Assembly by former president, Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.

Prior to today’s presentation of the budget, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) and the National Assembly had approved the Medium Term Expenditure Framework which pegged the 2016 Budget at 6 Trillion Naira.

According to the president, the budget would address youth unemployment and improve the wellbeing of the vulnerable.

He also said the nation remains committed to diversification to build and reflate the economy, and announced that the petrol pump price would remain at 87 naira per litre.

He emphasised that there would be changes in the way government conducts its business and that all MDAs would be required to prepare and present their annual budgets on time.

“We will align fiscal, monetary and investment policies,” he added.

In the course of the budget presentation, President Buhari apologised to Nigerians over the fuel scarcity that has persisted across the country since October.

According to him, the cause of the scarcity was due to the refusal of stakeholders in the petroleum industry to embrace change.

He assured that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, has been mandated to explore ways to end the scarcity as quickly as possible.

On Monday, the Federal Government had blamed the administration of former president Goodluck Jonathan for the current scarcity by refusing to pay marketers subsidy claims owed them since 2014.