The Federal Government on Wednesday adjusted the 2020 budget downward from the original N10.59trn to N10.52trn.
The Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari approved the adjustments.
The new figures were captured in the revised 2020 Medium Term Expenditure Framework submitted to the council by the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed.
Parameters adjusted in the budget include the crude oil benchmark, which has been cut further from $30 to $25.
This is the second time the government would be adjusting the crude oil benchmark from the original level of $57 since the outbreak of the pandemic.
Ahmed, who spoke with State House Correspondents after the meeting, said daily crude oil production was now 1.94 million barrels per day, while the Naira-Dollar exchange rate was put at N360/$1.
She stated, “The revised budget is now in the total sum of N10.523tn, a difference of just about N71.5m when compared to the approved budget.
“This is because, as we cut down the size of the budget, we also have to bring in new expenditure previously not budgeted, to enable us to adequately respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The minister noted that the dwindling finances owing to the crude oil crash, meant that the budget had with a huge deficit and that that would be funded through foreign and domestic borrowings.
She stated, “The federal government in this budget will have direct revenue of funding the budget of N5.158billion. The deficit to this budget (is) N5.365tn and this will be financed by both domestic as well as foreign borrowing.
“The foreign borrowings we are doing for 2020 are all concessionary loans from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Islamic Development as well as Afro-EXZIM Bank. There will also be some draw down of previously committed loans for major ongoing projects that we will be drawing from both existing facilities as well as some special accounts with the approval of Mr. President and the National Assembly.”
