FG to reduce capital vote in 2020 budget

The Federal Government is to reduce capital vote from the current 32 per cent to 17 per cent in the 2020 appropriation bill.

Conversely, it plans to raise recurrent expenditure to 79 per cent from 68 per cent in the coming budget.

This was part of the highlights of the 2020-2022 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) whose assumptions would form the bedrock of the preparation of the financial document.

Other parameters in the spending framework include the scaling down of daily oil mineral production level from this year’s 2.3 million barrels to 2.18 million barrels; an oil price benchmark reduction from $60 to $55 per barrel while however retaining the exchange rate at N305 per dollar.

Minister of Finance, Mrs. Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed, who presented the new MTEF yesterday in Abuja, also announced that the 2019 budget would be reviewed downward in January when the 2020 spending plan would have been approved.

She said the review of the estimates was considered in the light of the dwindling revenues available to the government.

Moreover, the minister said the payment of the N650 billion loan to states would begin at the next Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting.

She clarified that the money was not a grant but a loan from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) with a two-year tenor that had expired.

Ahmed was reacting to a question on the bailout fund captured in the yet to be presented 2020 fiscal document.