The Senate has approved the 2025–2027 Medium Term Expenditure Framework, MTEF and Fiscal Strategy Paper, FSP earlier submitted by President Bola Tinubu ahead of his presentation of the 2025 Appropriation Bill to the Joint session of the National Assembly this week.
In the three years projections, the Upper Chamber pegged the exchange rate at N1,400/$ for 2025, 2026 and 2027 respectively, just as it noted that the three-year projections for domestic crude oil production had a significant increase from 1.78m bpd in the preceding year to 2.06, 2.10 and 2.35 for the subsequent years of 2025, 2026 and 2027, respectively.
The approval yesterday was sequel to the consideration and adoption of report of Senate joint Committees on Finance; and National Planning & Economic Affairs, chaired by Senator Sani Musa, APC, Niger East during plenary.
The Senate further projected Gross Domestic Product, GDP growth rates of 4.6 per cent, 4.4 per cent, and 5.5 per cent for 2025, 2026 and 2027, even as also projected the inflation rates at 15.75 per cent, 14.21 per cent, and 10.04 per cent for 2025, 2026 and 2027 respectively.
It, however, demanded a reduction in the petrol prices against the backdrop of the commencement of production at the Port Harcourt refinery.
This was even as it mandated its Committees on Finance; Petroleum (Upstream) and Petroleum (Downstream) as well as Gas to investigate reports from the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Responsibility Commission, RMAFC, alleging that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL withheld N8.48 trillion as claimed subsidies for petrol.
It noted that the investigation would address the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI report, stating that NNPCL failed to remit $2 billion (N3.6 trillion) in taxes to the Federal Government.
The Senate further directed its Committees to verify the total cumulative amount of unremitted revenue (under-recovery) from the sale of Premium Motor Spirit, PMS also known as petrol by the NNPCL between 2020 and 2023.
