THE Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved a revision of the 2020 Budget from N10.594 trillion to N10.523 trillion, reflecting a N71.5billion downward review.

Minister of Finance Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, who stated this while briefing State House correspondents after the virtual FEC meeting  at the State House yesterday, also said an amendment to the Medium Term Expenditure Framework(MTEF) for 2020-2022 was approved.

President Muhammadu Buhari in December signed the N10.594 trillion Appropriation bill into  law.

The minister also explained that FEC  also approved the recommendations with key parameters, including the price of crude oil  pegged at $25 per barrel, crude oil production at 1.94 million barrels per day and an exchange rate of N360 to $1.

She said: “This is because, as we cut down the size of the budget, we also have to bring in new expenditure previously not budgeted, to enable us adequately respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The Federal Government in this budget will have direct revenue of funding the budget of N5.158 billion. “The deficit to this budget N5.365 trillion and this will be financed by both domestic as well as foreign borrowing.

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“The foreign borrowing we are doing for 2020 are all concessionary loans from the IMF which has already been approved and has crystallized, from the World Bank, Islamic Development Bank  as well as Afri- EXIM bank.