Ahead of the 2025 budget presentation by President Bola
Tinubu before the joint session of National Assembly any moment from now, the
Senate on Tuesday approved the 2025–2027 Medium Term Expenditure Framework,
MTEF, and Fiscal Strategy Paper, FSP, earlier submitted by the President.
The approval followed the adoption of the report of Senate
joint Committees on Finance, and National Planning & Economic Affairs,
chaired by Senator Sani Musa (APC Niger East) during plenary.
This was even as the Red Chamber mandated its Committees on
Finance; Petroleum (Upstream) and Petroleum (Downstream) as well as Gas, to
investigate reports from the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal
Responsibility Commission, RMAFC, alleging that the Nigerian National Petroleum
Company Limited, NNPCL, withheld N8.48 trillion as claimed subsidies for
petrol.
The Senate noted that the investigation would address issues
raised in the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI,
report, stating that NNPCL failed to remit $2 billion (N3.6 trillion) in taxes
to the Federal Government.
The Senate further directed its committees to verify the
total cumulative amount of unremitted revenue (under-recovery) from the sale of
Premium Motor Spirit, PMS also known as petrol by the NNPCL between 2020 and
2023.
It, however, directed the relevant committees to carry out
in-depth investigation of such agreements by the NNPCL, Nigerian Liquefied
Natural Gas, NLNG and Immigration Services with a view to reconcile remittances
to the Federation Account.
In the three years projections, the Senate pegged the
exchange rate at N1,400/$ for 2025, 2026 and 2027 respectively.
It also projected oil benchmark prices at $75, $76.2 and
$75.3 per barrel for 2025, 2026 and 2027 respectively.
The Senate added that the three-year projections for
domestic crude oil production had a significant increase from 1.78m bpd in the
preceding year to 2.06, 2.10 and 2.35 for the subsequent years of 2025, 2026
and 2027, respectively.
It further projected Gross Domestic Product, GDP growth
rates of 4.6 per cent, 4.4 per cent, and 5.5 per cent for 2025, 2026 and 2027.
The Red Chamber also projected the inflation rates at 15.75
per cent, 14.21 per cent, and 10.04 per cent for 2025, 2026 and 2027
respectively.
It, however, demanded a reduction in the petrol prices
against the backdrop of the commencement of production at the Port Harcourt
refinery.
According to the recommendations, “The 2025 Federal
Government of Nigeria budget proposed spending of N47.9trilion of which N34.82
trillion is retained. New borrowings stood at N9.22trillion, made up of both
domestic and foreign borrowings.
“Capital expenditure is projected at N16.48 trillion with
statutory transfers standing at N4.26 trillion and sinking funds projected at
N430.27billion.”
Speaking during debate on the report, the chairman of the
Senate Committee on Appropriations, Senator Solomon Adeola (APC Ogun West)
referenced the Federal Government’s Compressed Natural Gas, CNG initiative as
the underlying imperative for the adoption of the N1,400 to one dollar.
“With the functioning of our refineries the demand for Forex
will drop. With the CNG initiative, Nigerians will have an option for your
information if you leave Benin to Lagos the amount of fuel is about 130,000 but
with CNG you can’t use more than N48,000. Another issue to be addressed is the
recurrent to-capital ratio which is very high,” he said.
In his contribution, the former Senate Leader, Senator
Yahaya Abdullahi (PDP Kebbi North), stressed the need to support the
manufacturing industries if the projections of the MTEF are to be achieved.
In his remarks, the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio,
commended the chairman and members of the joint committees for the work done on
the document.
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