President Muhammadu Buhari has forwarded the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) to the National Assembly.
The MTEF shows a proposal to spend 6.8 trillion Naira on the 2017 budget with the debt servicing of 1.6 trillion Naira.
Based on the MTEF, the oil benchmark price is put at $42.50 per barrel with 2.2 million oil production per day and an exchange rate of 290 Naira to a dollar.
The document also states that 65 billion Naira will be spent on the Amnesty Programme while 350 billion Naira will be spent on the special intervention Programme in 2017.
Senate President Bukola Saraki acknowledged the receipt of the document at plenary.
The 2017 MTEF is coming two months earlier than that of 2015 which was forwarded to the National Assembly on December 8.
In that MTEF, President Buhari earmarked 500 billion Naira for school feeding programme initiatives, conditional cash transfer to most vulnerable Nigerians and post-NYSC grant.
Out of the budget proposal of 6.04 trillion Naira, the Federal Government’s revenue is projected at 3.82 trillion Naira and would borrow 2.22 trillion Naira to finance the 2016 budget.
The new MTEF is over 700 billion Naira higher than the previous year.
The government had said it is doing its best to cut cost of governance and plug leakages and had also promised to forward this year’s budget early to the National Assembly to ensure early passage. (Channelstv)