Senate passes 2011 Budget

The Federal Government plans to spend N4.971trn this year, going by the budget passed yesterday by the National Assembly.

After passing the budget, the Senate adjourned till April 19, to give senators time for their political activities. The general elections are slated for April 2, 9 and 16.

The budget was passed without the estimates of the 31 agencies, which the House of Representative vowed to sanction, if they fail to submit their plans for scrutiny.

The agencies include the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

The budget is N433.69 billion higher than the N4.226 trillion proposal presented to the National Assembly by President Goodluck Jonathan on December 15, last year and the additional upward adjustment of N312 billion from the executive.

Compared with the aggregate N4.427 trillion 2010 Budget, the N4.971 trillion passed yesterday is also higher by N544.6 billion.

The N4.971 trillion includes N496.6 billion for Statutory Transfer, N445.1 billion for Debt Service, N2.46 trillion for Recurrent (Non-Debt) Expenditure and N1.56 trillion for Capital Expenditure.

The assumptions of the 2011 budget as presented by the Chairman of Senate Committee on Appropriation Senator Iyiola Omisore include $75 per barrel as oil price benchmark, 2.3 million barrel per day for crude oil production, $5.4 billion as joint venture production and 7% as Gross Domestic Product. While the exchange rate is pegged at N150 to $1.

On the additional submissions and modifications from the executive, Omisore said: "Whilst the 2011 budget was being processed by the various committees, the executive kept sending additional proposals till March 11, with adjustments, differentials, and errors in the sum of N312 billion to augment MDAs’ key priority expenditure."

The breakdown of the 2011 budget as passed yesterday showed that Defence got the highest of N380.47 as the combined capital and recurrent expenditures, followed by Education with N365.88 billion, Police formations and Command got N337.22 and N266.73 billion goes to Health Ministry.

Defence, Army, Air Force and Navy will get the highest of N311.69 billion Recurrent Expenditure, Education gets N306.3 billion, N296.56 billion goes to Police Formation and Commands.

Health gets N203.33 billion, Interior N152.3 billion; N86.68 billion goes to Works Ministry and N63 billion is voted for the Office of the National Security Adviser.

For the 2011 Capital Expenditure, the Ministry of Works gets the highest sum of N188.9 billion, the Presidential Intervention Projects are to gulp N100 billion, Power to get N99.07 billion, N88.4 billion to Niger Delta, Office of the National Security Adviser gets N87.8 billion.

Other Capital expenditure includes N73.7 billion for Water Resources, N70 billion for the FCT and N68 billion for Defence, Army, Air Force, Navy. Health has N63 billion. Science and Technology gets N60.2 billion, Lands and Housing N52.46 billion; N50.3 billion goes to Transport and N50 billion is for the National Job Creation Scheme.

Under the Statutory Transfers of N496.6 billion, the National Assembly is to receive N232.7 billion, representing 4.7 per cent of the total budget; N95 billion goes to the National Judicial Council, N54 billion to the NDDC, N62 billion to UBE and INEC has N52 billion.

For Debt Service, Domestic debts are allocated N400. 011 billion. Foreign debts get N45.08 billion.

The Service wide votes have N394.4 billion; N154.7 billion goes for pensions and gratuities.

The N312 billion additional submission by the executive includes the Minimum Wage Increase not initially captured and Amnesty programme for ex-militants, among others.

The Senate also yesterday approved the virement of N22.38 billion to the Power Sector and N1.496 billion to Aviation from other ministries in the 2010 Budget.