President Buhari Adjusts 2017-2019 MTEF

President Muhammadu Buhari has adjusted the 2017-2019 Medium Term Framework Expenditure earlier forwarded to National Assembly for consider‎ation, even as the Federal Government decided to spend N564 billion of recovered loots on the 2017 Budget.

In the review copy, the exchange rate has been jerked up from N290 to N305 as official rate‎.

The budget proposal that would be presented by President Buhari on Wednesday is now N7.3 trillion.

The proposed budget represents an increase of ‎about 19.95 per cent over the 2016 Appropriation of N6.07 trillion.

The benchmark for crude oil still stands as $42.5 per barrel and the daily production level still stands at 2.2 million barrels per day.

In the MTEF proposal, the total amount of recovered loots was put at N564 billion.

The breakdown of the looted funds showed that N97.6 billion ($320 million) was recovered from Switzerland, N261 billion was domestic recoveries, assets and fines and other Federal Government recoveries was N205 billion.

Udoma said: “The physical money that we actual received have been factored into 2017 budget.”Responding to a question on looted funds, the Minister of Budget and National Planing, Udoma Udo Udoma, ‎explained the physical monies recovered have been factored into the 2017 budget.

The MTEF submitted earlier to National Assembly did not indicate recovery from Switzerland and domestics recoveries.

In a related development, the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, and the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele,‎ shunned interactive session organised by Joint Senate Committee on Finance and Appropriation to scrutinize the 2017 MTEF.

The Co-chairman of the Joint Committee, Senator John Enoh, expressed dissatisfaction at the absence of Adeosun and Emefiele, at the meeting, saying that their absence is a challenged to the conclusion of the MTEF.

Enoh added that the committee needed them to give details of the amount spent so far in the 2016 budget.