President Goodluck Jonathan on Wednesday presented a budget of N4.9 trillion to the Joint Session of the National Assembly.
The figure is 5 per cent more than the N4.7 trillion the president presented in the outgoing year.
The sum of N2.41 trillion is for recurrent (non-debt) expenditure, capital expenditure will take N1.5 trillion while statutory transfers will take N380 million and debt service, N591 billion.
The gross federally collectible revenue is projected at N10.84 trillion of which the total revenue available for the Federal Government’s Budget is forecast at N3.89 trillion.
Based on the above, fiscal deficit is projected to improve by about? 2.17 per cent of GDP compared to 2.85 per cent in the current year.
The budget proposed an oil production of 2.53 million barrels per day, an increase from the 2.48 million barrels per day approved in 2012.
The oil benchmark is 75 dollars per barrel, compared to the 72 dollars per barrel approved in the 2012 budget.
Allocations to some critical sectors of the economy are: Defence, N348.91 billion; Power, N74.26; Works, N183.5 billion; Education, N426.53 billion, Health, N279.23 billion, Agriculture and Rural Development, N81.41 billion, and Police, N319.65 billion.
President Jonathan said that the Subsidy Reinvestment Programme (SURE-P) would continue with the expected resources of N180 billion in 2013.
He said supportive fiscal measures for some priority areas would be implemented to promote agriculture.
He said that the importation of machinery and spare- parts for local sugar manufacturing industries would be duty free.
Jonathan said that a 10 per cent import duty and 100 per cent levy would be applied to both brown and polished rice. ?
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