President Muhammadu  Buhari has proposed 2.46 trillion Naira for capital projects in the 2020 budget.

This is coming as the President today presented the 2020 budget proposal to the National Assembly, NASS.

According to Buhari, the 2020 appropriation is predicated on the following parameters: Benchmark Oil Price : $57 Production: 2.18m bpd FX: N305/$ Proposed Increase of VAT from 5% to 7.5%.

The President noted that the goal of the presentation is for the 2020 Appropriation Act to come into effect on January 1, 2020.

He emphasised that Nigeria remains committed to meet its debt service obligations which is estimated at 2.45 trillion Naira.

While top allocations include Works and Housing : N262b Power: N127bn Transportation: N123bn UBE: 112bn Defence: N100bn Zonal Intervention Projects: N100bn Agriculture and Rural Devt: N83bn Water Resources: N82bn Niger Delta: 81bn Education: N48bn Social Work:30bn and FCT: 28bn, budget for National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has increased from N1.5 billion to N2.5 billion in the 2020 budget.

The President said that domiciliary accounts in foreign missions will be captured in TSA.

He however noted that the main emphasis of the budget proposal will be on the completion of as many ongoing projects as possible, instead of starting new ones.

He added that he has also directed the stoppage of salaries for any staff not captured in the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) by end of October 2019.

On Value Added Tax, he said “We will raise the threshold for VAT registration to N25m turnover per annum, to bring relief to our smallest businesses”. He revealed that the receipts from VAT in the last budget year were below expectation.