Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan
Lagos, Nigeria (Platts) – Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday again shelved the presentation of the 2014 budget to parliament, after the two legislative chambers failed to agree on the oil price assumption for revenue projections.
Jonathan was initially billed to submit the 2014 budget proposals to the National Assembly on November 12, but cancelled it after lawmakers disagreed with the president’s $74/barrel oil price benchmark proposed for next year.
Jonathan, however, cancelled Tuesday’s rescheduled presentation following differences in the oil price assumption adopted by the chambers, President of the upper chamber, the Senate, David Mark, said.
While the Senate voted for an oil price benchmark of $76.5/b, the lower chamber House of Representatives adopted a higher price assumption of $79/b.
“In the circumstances, it has become necessary to defer the presentation of the 2014 budget to a joint session of the National Assembly until such a time when both respected chambers would have harmonized their positions,” Jonathan said in a letter to the parliament and read on state television by Mark.
Under the medium-term expenditure framework, the president submitted to parliament last month for consideration, oil production of 2.38 million b/d and $74/b price benchmarks were proposed by the executive, compared with $79/b and 2.53 million b/d adopted for this year’s budget.
Oil accounts for more than 80% of Nigerian government revenues.
But officials have privately expressed the need for Nigeria to be cautious because of the expected impact of shale gas on global oil prices, the country’s exports of its light, sweet crude streams, as well as earnings.
Data released Tuesday by the National Bureaus of Statistics showed that Nigeria’s oil production declined year-on-year by 10.3% to 2.26 million b/d in third quarter of this year.
