Senate on Wednesday passed the 2022-2024 Medium Term Expenditure and Fiscal Strategy Paper of the Federal Government.
It, however, retained all the assumptions and projections submitted by President Muhammadu Buhari last July, including the exchange rate of N410.15 per dollar proposed by the Executive.
It also approved the projected Gross Domestic Product growth rate of 4.20 per cent.
The approvals followed Senate’s consideration of the report of the Senate Joint Committee on Finance, National Planning and Economic Affairs; Foreign and Local Debts; Banking, Insurance and Other Financial Institutions; Petroleum Resources (Upstream); Down Stream Petroleum Sector; and Gas, on the 2022-2024 MTEF/FSP.
The report was presented by the Chairman of the Joint Committee, Senator Solomon Adeola.
The Senate further retained and approved the projected Inflation rate of 13 per cent Fiscal deficit estimate of N5.62 trillion as well as the President’s projected new borrowings of N4.89 trillion, including foreign and domestic borrowing.
It also approved the $3.5billion International Monetary Fund loan at the rate of 0.01 per cent to 0.02 per cent proposed by the President to shore up internal borrowing and reduce external borrowing because of the exchange rate risks.
Senate, however, retained Federal Government’s 2022 revenue projection of N8.36 trillion; and expenditure of N13.98 trillion.
It also retained other parameters contained in the MTEF/FSP submitted by the President, including Statutory transfers (N613.4 billion; Debt Service (N3.12 trillion); Sinking Fund (N292); Pension, Gratuities & Retirees Benefits of N567 billion; and Aggregate Expenditure of N13.98 trillion.
While the aggregate expenditure is made up of total recurrent (non-debt) of N6.21 trillion; and Personnel Costs (MDAs) of N3.47 trillion, the Capital expenditure (exclusive of Transfers) is N3.26 trillion; Special Intervention (Recurrent), N350 billion; and Special intervention (Capital), N10billion.