Nigeria’s lawmakers, on Tuesday, passed an 8.91 trillion naira ($29.3 billion) budget for 2019, following a hike in the spending plan from President Muhammadu Buhari last year.
In December, Buhari presented a spending plan of 8.83 trillion naira for this year, a smaller figure compared with the record 9.12 trillion naira budget for 2018.
“There is a slight increase in the budget deficit. There was also the need to provide more funds for the security and intelligence agencies to deal with additional unforeseen security challenges in the country,” the Senate chairman on appropriation, Senator Mohammed Goje says in a budget paper.
Nigeria’s economy grew by 1.93 percent last year, its fastest pace since a recession two years earlier, while inflation, which has been in double digits for three years, fell to 11.25 percent in March.
Buhari starts a second term of four years at the end of May. He had won the country’s re-election, pledging to revive the economy, improve security and tackle corruption.
Parliament based its budget approval on estimated crude production of 2.3 million barrels a day, assumed oil price of $60 per barrel and an exchange rate of 305 naira to the dollar.