President Buhari to present 2021 Budget before National Assembly today

President Muhammadu Buhari will today, Thursday present the 2021 budget estimate at a joint session of both chambers of the National Assembly.

This comes about a week after the House of Representatives approved the Medium Term Expenditure and Fiscal Strategy Paper, pegging the total proposed 2021 expenditure at N13.08 trillion.

According to the proposal contained in the 2021- 2023 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper sent to the Senate in July, the budget will be on a deficit of N5.16 trillion and will be partly financed by a total loan package of N4.28 trillion.

The proposed budget also targets N481.41 billion as statutory transfers – also known as the first-line charge, a category into which the National Assembly budget falls.

The sum of N5.75 trillion is appropriated for recurrent expenditure, N3.33 trillion for capital expenditure, and N3.12 trillion for debt servicing.

President of the Senate, Ahmed Lawan said the month of October will be dedicated to budget defense by Ministries, Departments, and Agencies, while the months of November and December will be dedicated to the internal processing of the Budget by the National Assembly.

The Senate president urged all ministries to ensure that they avail themselves the opportunity of the Budget defense window to appear with all the relevant and necessary information to defend their Budget Estimates.