The Nigerian Senate on Wednesday, approved the
revised version of the 2017-2019 Medium Term Expenditure Framework, MTEF, and
Fiscal Strategy Paper, FSP.
The upper Chamber of the National Assembly also adopted
the exchange rate of N305 for a US dollar for the 2017 fiscal year.
Recall that President Buhari had in 2016, forwarded the approval to the senate.
Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, who presided over the plenary, described the passage as “a very important step towards the passage of the 2017 budget.”
According to Ekweremadu, “Hopefully, if we pass this MTEF/FSP, we will be in the position to comment on the consideration of the 2017 budget by next week. It is therefore important that we conclude the discussion on this subject and ensure that it is passed today.
“Having listened to the comments, it appears to me that the only area that needs to be emphasised is the issue of the exchange rate. We are worried with the huge gap between the parallel market and the official market and as it has been said by the Chairman of Appropriations (Committee), the Central Bank (of Nigeria) needs to do something about it because it is one thing that is breeding corruption.
“We must find a way of bridging that gap and also stabilise the exchange rate so that investors can do its own forecast in terms of their investments.
“We believe that something needs to be done in the area of the exchange rate.”
The Senate also approved all the critical projections in the MTEF/FSP as proposed by the executive, except the oil benchmark, which was increased from the proposed $42.5 to $44.5.
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