Nigerian federal lawmakers on Thursday increased the anticipated value of the 2020 proposed budget by N727bn.
This increases the value of the proposed 2020 budget from N10trn to N10.28trn.
The Senate made the adjustment with its adoption of the recommendations on the Medium Term Expenditure Framework/Fiscal Strategy Paper for 2020 to 2022, made by a joint finance committee.
The document was presented by Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, on September 25.
The lawmakers arrived at their increased estimated spending by raising the crude oil benchmark from $55, as proposed by the FBNP, to $57.
The joint committee on finance, whose report was adopted by the lawmakers, retained the exchange rate at N305 per United States dollar and the oil production benchmark at 2.18mbpd as proposed in the MTEF/FSP.
However, the legislature increased the revenue target for the Nigeria Customs Service in 2020 by N557.4bn.
The executive proposed a collection of N942.6bn, while the National Assembly adjusted it to N1.5trn.
This led to the committee reducing the budget deficit to N1.5trn from N1.7trn as N200bn from the increased target of the NCS would be expected to shore up the total revenue.
The executive had in the MTEF proposed to spend N2.45trn on debt servicing.
