Abuja, NIGERIA
Nigeria’s Minister
of Finance Zainab Ahmed announced that the government will reduce the size of
its budget in the wake of a drastic decrease in the price of crude oil.
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| Nigerian Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed attends the IMF and World Bank’s 2019 Annual Spring Meetings, in Washington, U.S. |
Ahmed, who spoke on Monday in the capital Abuja, said that a committee
will meet soon to agree on what the size of the reduction of the budget will be
and consider the benchmark crude oil price of $57 a barrel used to calculate
the budget.
The committee will comprise Ahmed, the Minister of State for Petroleum
Timipre Sylva, the head of state-run Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation (NNPC) Mele Kyari and the Central Bank Governor Godwin
Emefiele.
In December 2019, Nigeria passed a record 10.59 trillion naira ($35
billion) budget for 2020 which assumed crude production of 2.18 million barrels
a day and an oil price of $57 per barrel.
In February, the International Monetary Fund reduced Nigeria’s 2020
growth forecast by 0.5 percent to 2 percent, due to lower demand for oil amid
fears that the on-going coronavirus outbreak in China will cause a slowdown.
The news is a blow to President Muhammadu Buhari, who made a
pre-election pledge to revive the Nigerian economy and diversify it away from
its heavy reliance on oil in his second term.
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