Nigeria’s Senate Finance Committee proposed on Wednesday cutting the oil price benchmark in the 2015 budget to $52 a barrel from its current $65, a source at parliament said.
The finance ministry had previously said that the benchmark would not change.
The source told Reuters the upper house had debated the change proposed by the committee on Wednesday but had not yet reached a conclusion
Nigeria’s public finances have been hit by a sharp drop in world oil prices and irregular supply linked to pipeline vandalism. The government depends on oil for around 80 percent of revenues.
Nigeria’s gross government revenue fell 15 percent to 416 billion naira ($2.07 billion) in January due to weaker oil prices, the accountant general said on Wednesday.
“There was substantial loss of revenue due to a further drop in the prices of crude oil,” Jonah Otunla said, adding that decrease in export volumes by one third between November and December 2014 had cost $159.88 million.”
It is unclear where the cuts will fall, with capital expenditure already slashed to 10 percent of the budget and the government struggling to pay salaries of its bloated civil service.
