Coronavirus: FG Cuts 2020 Budget By 1.5trn

Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed
The Coronavirus outbreak is beginning to hit the Nigerian economy really hard, just as predicted by the GMD of the NNPC Mele Kyari, that the country should prepare for tough times as the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning Zainab Ahmed announced that the FG will be cutting N1.5trn from the N10.59trn from the 2020 Appropriation Act. Zainab Ahmed. Coronavirus: FG Cuts The 2020 Budget By 1.5trn Budget Cut

Zainab who disclosed this after the federal cabinet meeting yesterday March 18, said the cut from capital expenditure stood at 20 %; while recurrent expenditure would incur 25%.

She said;

“We’ve written every ministry and given them guidelines on how these adjustments will be made to enable us have detailed inputs from the ministries.
“But I can just say that the bulk cut is about N1.5trn, the reduction in the size of the budget. And this includes N457bn from PMS under-recovery.”
Coronavirus

Minister of Finance Zaniab Ahmed also revealed that an embargo will be placed on the recruitment exercise and replacement, Zainab also disclosed that the government won’t stop paying salaries and won’t be sacking workers anytime soon too.

She added;

“On recruitment, there is already an instruction to stop recruitment. What the agencies have been doing is replacement but even that is being suspended. When things improve, we will go back to the issue of recruitment. But for now, our wage bill is already very high.
“The president has directed that salaries and pensions must be paid unfailingly. So, we are not looking at downsizing in anyway. We are maintaining our workforce as it is. But we are just stopping the increase in the size of the nominal roll.”

This is coming after the minister revealed that the coronavirus pandemic might lead to a reduction of the 2020 budget which was passed by the National Assembly at $57 per barrel oil benchmark.

Photo Credit: Getty

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