The salaries and allowances of workers in the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and four other parastatals have been set at N74.65 billion in 2020. This is according to budget estimates presented to the National Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari.
What you should know: The amount proposed as salaries and other emoluments for workers in the petroleum ministry is higher than the N43.957 billion budgeted as salaries and wages for workers in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
It is also higher than the N32.18 billion, N4.661 billion, N4.248 billion and N12.09 billion budgeted for workers in the Presidency, Ministry of Power, Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Works and Housing respectively.
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Beneficiaries: The beneficiaries of this largesse include workers from the Ministry of Petroleum Resources while the four parastatals represented are the Department of Petroleum Resources, (DPR); Petroleum Training Institute, (PTI); Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, (PPPRA) and the Nigeria Nuclear Regulatory Authority, (NNRA).
The Breakdown: The highest salary beneficiaries are the workers of DPR. N37.52 billion was budgeted for the agency as personnel cost, representing 50.26% of the total personnel cost of the entire industry.
Workers of the PTI will get N14.86 billion, representing 19.91% of the total allocation. The staff of the PPPRA, NNRA, and Ministry of Petroleum Resources (Headquarters) are to collect N11.21 billion, N10.37 billion and N690.16 million as salaries, accounting for 15.02%, 13.89% and 0.92% of total personnel cost of the ministry.
Meanwhile, the staff of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and its subsidiaries, alongside the Petroleum Equalisation Fund, (PEF) were not included in the budget.
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Recall that last week, the President Muhammadu Buhari, presented the 2020 appropriation bill before a joint session of the National Assembly. According to the President, the revenue generation estimated to fund the 2020 national budget is N8.155 trillion.
However, the 2020 budget was set at N9.79 trillion, indicating a deficit of about N1.5 trillion. What this means is that the Federal Government will borrow in order to balance up the budget.
