The meeting between the Federal Government and the House of Representatives on the 2015 budget yesterday ended in a deadlock, BusinessDay reliably learnt. The 25-member special committee on the 2015 budget headed by John Enoh, chair- man, House Committee on Appropriation, had during the meeting with Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, coordinating minister for the economy and finance minister, differed sharply on the 2015 budget parameters including $50 per barrel bench- mark proposed by the Federal Government while the House insisted on $55 per barrel.
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The meeting which was held behind closed-doors to deliberate on the 2015-2017 medium term expenditure framework (MTEF) for over four hours also failed to reach compromise on the exchange rate of N180 to a dollar as proposed by the Federal Government while the House insisted on N165 to a dollar. Members of the commit- tee specifically expressed displeasure over the de- valuation of the naira which presently sells at N217 at the open market. On the low allocation to capital projects while the House called for 25 percent budgetary allocation to capital expenditure, the Federal Government’s team insisted on 17 percent.
