Oil price: Reps’ committee to meet Okonjo-Iweala on 2015 budget

The House of Representatives on Wednesday set up a special committee to meet the Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, over the sliding oil price at the international market. The 17-member committee was set up after a three-hour closed-door meeting by the lawmakers to iron out some grey areas in the 2015 Appropriation Bill.
Announcing the constitution of the committee at plenary, Speaker of the House, Aminu Tambuwal, said, “During the closed-door session, we took time to discuss the 2015 budget, MTEF and all the parameters that are related to the budget. We agreed that we should set up a special committee to meet with ministry of finance on the issues related to that”.

 
The committee is headed by the Chairman of the House’s Committee on Appropriation, John Enoh. Members of the committee Abdulmumini Jibril, Yinka Ajayi, Bimbo Daramola, Jerry Manwe, Linus Okorie, Ibrahim Babangida and Yakub Dogara.

 
Others are Tajudeen Yusuf, Nnenna Ukeje, Pat Asadu, Nicholas Ossain, Babatunde Adajare, Seconte Davis, Isa Gusau, Abubakar Momoh and Dan Akpan.

 
Okonjo-Iweala had on December 17, 2014, on behalf of Presiddent Goodluck Jonathan, presented a budget proposal of N4.357 trillion for 2015. In the proposal, the benchmark was 73 dollars per barrel of crude oil but was later reduced to $65 per barrel.