The House of Representatives has approved the review of the parameters for the 2020/2022 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper.
The House differed with the recommendation of the executive on the oil benchmark of $25 per barrel by increasing it to $28 per barrel.
The other recommendation is the scrapping of the excess crude account.
The House approved 1.8 million barrels per day as a daily production target.
The approval followed the consideration of the report submitted by the House Committee on Finance and the House committee on supply.
Speaking on the report, Chairman of the committee on finance, James Faleke said the excess crude account is illegal and the House decided to increase the benchmark to reduce the deficit of the budget.
“The Excess Crude Account has no backing of the law. The Committee, therefore, recommends that the account be scrapped with immediate effect and comply with sections 80 and 81 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“That the National Assembly should as a matter of urgency amend the fiscal responsibility Act to make it more responsive to present-day realities.”
The National Assembly approved N10,594,362,364,830 as the budget for 2020, however, the outbreak of COVID19 has led to a decline in the price of crude oil, the initial oil benchmark was $57 per barrel.
To mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on revenue, the executive proposed an N84.7 billion reduction to the budget, the new proposal is N10.509billion.
Commenting on the Excess Crude Account, the Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila said the House will only recognize the ECA when a bill of the national assembly gives the legal backing to the ECA.
