The House of Representatives on Thursday slashed the crude oil benchmark for the 2015 budget to $54, down from the $65 originally proposed by President Goodluck Jonathan.
Lawmakers took the decision as they considered and approved the 2015-2017 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper.
The approval of the MTEF is a mandatory requirement preceding the passage of the 2015 budget estimates of N4.3trillion by the National Assembly.
The Senate already approved the MTEF last week, an indication that both chambers may likely pass the budget itself next week.
The Senate had passed $52 as the oil benchmark.
In slashing the benchmark, the House adopted the position of its Joint Committees on Appropriations, Finance, Aids/Loans and Debt Management, which advised against the $65.
The report of the committees indicated that the $65 was not sustainable in the face of the crashing crude oil prices globally.
However, the House retained the oil production projection of 2.278,2mbpd (2015); 2.327,1mbpd (2016); and 2.406,7mbpd (2017) proposed by the executive.
While raising projected non-oil revenue for the 2015 budget from N3.5tn to N4tn, lawmakers cut the total recurrent proposal from N2.6tn to N2.5tn.
On the capital side, the House raised it from N633.53bn to N700.78bn.
Statutory transfers also dropped from N411.85bn to N368.27bn.
But a decision of the House likely to generate tension between lawmakers and the Presidency was the scrapping of the Service Wide Vote, where the government put N360.94billion to spend this year.
The SWV has generated controversies lately, as the House complains of not knowing how the vote is utilised.
Just last week, the House Committee on Public Accounts reported that only Jonathan, the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala; and the Director-General of the Budget Office, Dr. Bright Okogu, had access to the account.
The House, acting on the report of the joint committees, relied on the findings of the PAC, which is headed by Mr. Solomon Olamilekan.
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