President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday, October 7, presented the N20.5 trillion 2023 Appropriation Bill to the joint session of the National Assembly in Abuja.
The ceremony which held at the temporary chamber of the House of Representatives commenced at about 10 am. It is the 4th joint session and the last budget presentation by President Buhari.
The national assembly had approved the medium-term expenditure framework (MTEF) and fiscal strategy paper (FSP) — parameters on which the 2023 budget will be framed.
While presenting the details, Buhari said the 2023 transition budget was designed to address critical issues and lay a solid foundation for the incoming administration.
He said that based on the parameters and fiscal assumptions, the revenue generation should hit about N16.87 trillion.
A breakdown of the budget, titled ‘Budget of Fiscal Consolidation and Transition’ shows that N744.11 billion was earmarked for statutory transfers, N8.27 trillion for non-debt recurrent costs, N1.1 trillion for overhead costs, and N5.35 trillion for capital expenditure.
“We expect the total fiscal operations of the federal government to result in a deficit of N10.78 trillion. This represents 4.78 percent of estimated GDP, slightly above the 3 percent threshold set by the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007.
As envisaged by the law, we need to exceed this threshold considering the need to continue to tackle the existential security challenges facing the country,” the president said.
He explained that the budget deficit will be financed mainly through borrowings and this would include new borrowings totalling N8.80 trillion, N206.18 billion from privatisation proceeds and N1.77 trillion drawdowns on bilateral/multilateral loans secured for specific development projects/programmes.
The benchmark for the price of crude oil is put at $73 per barrel for 2023, the exchange rate at N437.57 and daily oil production of 1.69mbpd, 1.83mbpd, and 1.83mbpd for 2023, 2024 and 2025 respectively.
