The Federal Executive Council, FEC has approved a 20% cut in the capital expenditure of ministries, departments and agencies in the 2020 national budget.
This follows the impact of the 45% drop in international prices of crude oil in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic that has made the $57 per barrel benchmark set for the 2020 Budget unrealistic.
The approval given by FEC which will be forwarded to the National Assembly for consideration also includes cut down on the size of the upstream projects in the petroleum sector funded by the Federal Government.
Also affected by resolutions of the FEC weekly meeting is the 2020 budget of all government-owned enterprises including the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC and the Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA among others which will be cut by as much as 25%.
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The Federal Government is also to revise the Medium Term Expenditure Framework, MTEF on which the 2020 budget was based. This will include a review of the oil benchmark.
(Editor: Terverr Tyav)
