President Muhammadu Buhari will Friday this week, present to joint session of the Senate and the House of Representatives, projected N19.76trillion 2023 budget.
The presentation as contained in a letter written to that effect by President Buhari and read in plenary Tuesday by the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan , will take place by 10:00am.
Ahmad Lawan after reading the letter, informed Senators that the presentation will take place at the temporary chamber of the House of Representatives which according him , has been properly put in place to accommodate all the 469 federal lawmakers, the president and his entourage.
The executive had in August at the consideration of the budget proposals, announced through the Finance Minister, Zainab Ahmed, that the total budget size will be N19.76trillion.
She said the federal government may not in the 2023 fiscal year, be able to make provision for treasury funded capital projects as deficit in the proposed budget will either be N11.30 trillion or N12.41trillion.
Basic assumptions or parameters for the proposed N19.76trillion budget as submitted by her are ÷$70 oil price benchmark per barrel, projected daily oil production of 1.69million, exchange rate of N435.57 to a dollar, 3.7% real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate and 17.16% inflation rate .
She added that the federal government was projecting total revenue of N8.46 trillion, out of which N1.9 trillion was expected to come from oil-related sources while the balance would come from non-oil sources.
She lamented that revenue generation had remained a major fiscal constraint for the country which resulted in the proposed N11.30 trillion budget deficit for 2023 from N7.35 trillion in 2022, representing 5.01 per cent of the estimated GDP above the three per cent threshold stipulated in the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA), 2007.
Finance committees of both chambers had thereafter, interfaced with the minister and heads of other relevant agencies on possible amendments to the proposals which will or may not reflect in the presentation to be made by the president on Friday.
