The Federal Executive Council (FEC), presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the draft 2018 National Budget proposal.
The FEC is to liaise with the National Assembly on a date President Muhammadu Buhari will present the document to the lawmakers.
Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udo Udoma, announced this to State House Correspondents at the post-FEC briefing.
Udoma who briefed alongside Ministers of Information Lai Mohammed, Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola and Finance, Kemi Adeosun, however declined to give details, insisting that only the president who is constitutionally backed has the prerogative to make them available to the public.
However, the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) document indicates that the 2018 Budget will have an aggregate expenditure profile of about N8.6 trillion, including grants and donor funding of N199.91 billion.
This provision exceeds 2017 Budget aggregate expenditure estimate of N7.44 trillion by 15.5 percent (N1.16 trillion)
The aggregate revenue to fund the 2018 budget is expected to be around N5.65 trillion, 11 percent or N562.50 billion over the 2017 estimate of N5.08 trillion.
About 43.2 percent of this revenue is projected to come from oil sources while the balance is to be earned from non-oil sources.
These figures are subject to confirmation by President Buhari when he presents the fiscal proposals to the National Assembly.
Details of the MTEF showed that aggregate revenue to fund the 2018 budget is projected at N5.65 trillion (11.0 percent or N562.50 billion over the 2017 estimate of N5.08 trillion).
Also, 43.2 percent of this is projected to come from oil sources while the balance is to be earned from non-oil sources.
Aggregate expenditure is estimated at N8.60 trillion (this include grants and donor funding of N199.91 billion naira).
“This provision exceeds 2017 aggregate expenditure estimate of N7.44 trillion by 15.5 percent (or about N1.16 trillion).
Asked to give key details of the 2018 proposals especially the foreign exchange, oil price production benchmarks etc, Udoma said, “It is the President’s prerogative to submit the budget, submit the proposals and give the details. I will be operating above my brief if I do that, the constitution gives that authority to the president.”
He said the federal government kept its promise to get the budget ready by October.
“We did promised that the budget will be ready in October and it is ready in October.
“We are liaising with the National Assembly because they have to approve the date for the president to come and address them to submit the budget,” he said.
The Minister said with Thursday’s approval of the draft copy of the 2018 budget proposal, the government was indeed on the path to return the country back to a predictable January to December fiscal year.
“Before now we use to submit budget proposal in December but now the budget is ready in October so there is a very big difference.”
Fashola on his part said Council approved the construction of 14 kilometer 330KVA transmission line by Transmission Company of Nigeria, to get them ready to evacuate Azura power plant in Edo State when it is ready in May 2018.
The contract is at the sum of N796.6 million to be completed in seven months, just about when Azura should be ready.
The Finance Minister, Adeosun said Council approved the memo for the establishment of Road Trust Fund structure. She said the memo was presented with the input of the minister of power, works and housing.
She said it is the Public Private Partnership (PPP) initiative that will allow the private sector to get involved in road construction in exchange for tax credit.
“What is unique about the scheme is that it is building on an existing scheme that avails tax credit but is one company per road and we have found that only two companies have been able to take advantage of it. The tax will be recovered over a three year period. We expect this to mobilize significant capital into road provision across the country. The ministry of works will be approving the design and the cost of those roads. The BPP will also provide certificates of no objection to make sure that the cost are reasonable, ministry of works will supervise.
“What we expect is significant road delivery especially in areas for example industrial clusters affected by very bad roads. They can get together, do the road and recover their money through the tax credit system.
“We expect the impact on revenues to be neutral because we are tightening our tax code but we still put in a limit that no company can apply and use more than 50 per cent of the tax within a year for this scheme.
“A company doesn’t have to be active in that area, so a bank, oil company, service company could get involved. We are really trying to widen the pool of funds for road construction.”
Adeosun said so far total amount that has been released on capital project for 2017 is N450 billion.
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