{Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari has finally signed into law a budget for 2016 after months of wrangling.}<\/p>\n
He had refused to approve the 6.08tn-naira ($30.6bn; \u00a321bn) budget amid claims of mismanagement and kickbacks among the officials who drew it up.<\/p>\n
The budget triples capital expenditure in Nigeria.<\/p>\n
Some 34 projects will get extra spending to help revive the economy, including improvements to power, health, and transport.<\/p>\n
“It is a great pleasure to sign the budget. It is a serious article of faith for the Nigerian people,” the president said at a ceremony.<\/p>\n
“The signing of the budget today will trigger concerted efforts to reflate the Nigerian economy, a key element of which is an immediate injection of 350bn naira into the economy by way of capital projects.”<\/p>\n
The budget is based on an oil price of $38 per barrel, slightly below the current global market rate of just over $40.<\/p>\n
Mr Buhari delayed signing the budget after finding errors in the spending programmes. <\/p>\n
The former military head of state, who has embarked on a widespread anti-corruption campaign since taking office last May, has claimed some lawmakers removed and replaced spending proposals.<\/p>\n
Delays in approving the expansionary budget have added to Nigeria’s economic problems of slow growth and high inflation.<\/p>\n
In his address, Mr Buhari said Nigeria was “experiencing probably the toughest economic times in the history of our nation”.<\/p>\n
The government is hoping to diversify the economy, produce more food, revive manufacturing and generate employment to help boost growth.<\/p>\n
Infrastructure development is also needed, particularly in roads, housing and power supply for Nigeria’s 180 million people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari has finally signed into law a budget for 2016 after months of wrangling.} He had refused to approve the 6.08tn-naira ($30.6bn; \u00a321bn) budget amid claims of mismanagement and kickbacks among the officials who drew it up. The budget triples capital expenditure in Nigeria. Some 34 projects will get extra spending to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-25163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25163\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25163"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=25163"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=25163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}