President Goodluck Jonathan has laid before the National Assembly a budget proposal of N4.357 trillion for the 2015 fiscal year.
The budget has N2.6 trillion as recurrent and N627.16 billion as its capital expenditure respectively.
The Tide source reports that Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Minister of Finance and the Coordinating Minister for the Economy, performed the exercise on behalf of the President, on Wedensday.
Speaking to newsmen after the presentation, Okonjo-Iweala, said the budget had oil price benchmark of 65 dollars per barrel.
“We have just laid the 2015 budget; one of the highlights is the benchmark price for oil of 65 dollars per barrel production figure of 2.27 million a day.
“We have re-estimated Gross Domestic Product (GPD) growth based on the circumstances of the country to be about 5.5 per cent, which is down from the 6.3 per cent we had earlier.
“The National Bureau for Statistics (NBS) new estimate is 5.5 for next year, which is still one of the better growth rates in the world,’’ she said.
According to her, the budget seeks to protect the average Nigerian.
“You are aware that our key focus is on the diversification of the economy and it’s been working because food prices have not risen in spite of the depreciation of the naira.
“If you check all around the market, you would find that the average Nigerian is enjoying stable food prices.
“And some cases like Enugu, the price of Gari has even fallen.’’
She said inflation rate as estimated by NBS had fallen from 8.1 per cent to 7.9 per cent.
“What this means is that this budget really focuses on moving us to diversify the economy and to raise non oil revenue.
“We have made up for the fall of 13 dollars per barrel from 78 dollars to 65 by raising non oil revenue through various types of taxes and policies.’’
She further said, “a surcharge on luxury goods is there plus additional tax efforts to close leakages in revenues’’.
Speaking on the seeming late presentation of the budget, Sen. Aloysius Etuk said the executive arm had not violated the provision of the constitution as the delay was involuntary.
“I feel everybody would excuse the executive arm in this case. The executive tried as much as possible to lay the budget on time.
“It presented the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) on time and then suffered a serious setback by the tumbling price of oil.
“Therefore, there was no way we could have considered the former presentation. If we had gone ahead to consider the former presentation we would have just shot ourselves on foot,’’ Etuk said.
According to him, the presentation of the about 73 dollars and 78 dollars per barrel is no longer practical and therefore cannot be used as the basis for the compilation and presentation of the budget.
“So the executive could be excused, quite excused because we are all witnesses to what has happened.
“ The delay was not premeditated and they have been proactive to have weathered the storm to present the budget today,’’ he said.
Etuk further said, “I want to congratulate the executive for even having the courage for even presenting the budget today’’.
He added, “I feel we should have even waited to have one more month study of the market to see the actual best fall of the oil price’’.
The National Assembly has adjourned until Jan. 13, 2015.