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Nigerian Senate Passes 4.6 Trillion Naira 2014 Budget

The Nigerian Senate on Wednesday considered and passed a budget of 4.695 trillion Naira (about 29.3 billion dollars) for the 2014 fiscal year. The amount represents … Continue reading Nigerian Senate Passes 4.6 Trillion Naira 2014 Budget


SenateThe Nigerian Senate on Wednesday considered and passed a budget of 4.695 trillion Naira (about 29.3 billion dollars) for the 2014 fiscal year.

The amount represents an increase of 53 billion Naira of the initial 4.642 trillion Naira presented to the National Assembly on December 19, 2013 by the Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who represented President Goodluck Jonathan.

Of the amount, 408.7 Naira was approved for statutory transfers, as against the 399.7 proposed by the executive.

The sum of 712 billion was approved for debt service as proposed.

The Senate also approved the sum of 2.5 trillion Naira for recurrent non-debt expenditure while the sum of 1.1 trillion Naira was approved for capital expenditure for the 2014 fiscal year.

In the proposal presented by the executive, the recurrent expenditure was 2.4 trillion Naira and the capital expenditure was 1.1 trillion Naira.

The approval was based on an oil price benchmark of $77.5 per barrel, Crude oil production of 2.3883 million barrels per day, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate of 6.75 per cent, Inflation rate of 9.5 per cent and Exchange Rate of 160 Naira to $1.00.

A third reading passage is expected by the House of Representatives before a harmonisation of the bill and further presentation to the president for assent.

While presenting the budget Okonjo-Iweala said: “This budget is the budget for job creation and inclusive growth; meaning that it is a budget which will continue the president’s transformation agenda for several sectors of the economy.

“The budget is going to support the push in agriculture. It will kick-start the housing sector where we can create more jobs.  It is designed to promote our policies that would support manufacturing because jobs would be created there.

“Industries will also be created in solid minerals. All these support will continued to be unleashed.  Job creation is the key to really solving the problems of the Nigerian economy.”