President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday, May 27 signed the 2019 Appropriation Bill of N8.91 trillion into law.
The National Assembly had passed the budget into law after increasing the budget size from its initial N8.83 trillion.
The budget is based on estimated crude oil production of 2.3 million barrels a day and the crude oil price of $60 per barrel.
The budget deficit is put at N1.9 trillion.
Yakubu Dogara, the speaker of the house of representatives; Danjuma Goje, chairman of the Senate committee on appropriation; Udoma Udo-Udoma, minister of budget and national planning; and Ita Enang, the senior special assistant to the president on national assembly matters, were present during the ceremony.
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Udo Udoma is scheduled to provide details of the signed budget at a public presentation on Tuesday.
The invitation read in part, “Dear Sir/Ma, On behalf of the Honourable Minister of Budget and National Planning, Sen. Udoma Udo Udoma, CON, the Director General, Budget Office of the Federation hereby invites you to a public presentation of the approved FGN 2019 Budget scheduled as follows: Date: Tuesday, 28th May 2019; Time: 10:30 am; Venue: Main Auditorium, Federal Ministry of Finance, CBD Abuja.”
Buhari had presented the budget on December 18, 2018, on the floor of the National Assembly; however, uncontrollable factors such as the Christmas and New Year breaks as well as the general election had affected its passage.
When the bill was presented by the President to the National Assembly, the sum of N8.83tn was proposed.
It was made up of N4.04tn for recurrent expenditure, N2.03tn for capital expenditure and N2.14tn for debt servicing, among others.
However, after undergoing legislative scrutiny, the lawmakers on April 30 passed the 2019 budget of N8.91tn, raising it by over N90.3bn.
Highlights of the 2019 budget as approved by the National Assembly include the capital expenditure of N2.09tn, recurrent expenditure of N4.05tn, statutory transfers of N502bn, fiscal deficit of N1.9tn, and special intervention of N500bn.
The lawmakers also approved debt service of N2.25tn.
Out of the figure, N1.7tn was approved for domestic debts, while the sum of N433bn was provided for foreign debts.
Similarly, the sum of N110bn was approved for a sinking fund to retire maturing debt obligations.
