Workers in the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and four other parastatals under the ministry will earn N74.65 billion as salaries and other emoluments in 2020, according to budget estimates presented by the Presidency to the National Assembly.

The workers included those from the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, while the four parastatals are the Department of Petroleum Resources, (DPR), Petroleum Training Institute (PTI) Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, (PPPRA) and the Nigeria Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NNRA).

However, the staff of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and its subsidiaries, as well as the staff of the Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEF), were not included in the budget.

The amount earmarked as salaries and other emoluments for workers under the petroleum ministry is far higher than the N43.957 billion budgeted as salaries and wages for workers in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; 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.

In the budget document, the presidency is proposing a total expenditure of N10.33 trillion, including statutory transfers of N556.7 billion, non-debt recurrent expenditure of N4.88 trillion and N2.14 trillion of capital expenditure (excluding the capital component of statutory transfers).

Debt service is estimated at N2.45 trillion, and provision for the Sinking Fund to retire maturing bonds issued to local contractors is N296 billion

Conversely, the sum of N8.155 trillion is estimated as the total Federal Government revenue in 2020 and comprised oil revenue N2.64 trillion, non-oil tax revenues of N1.81 trillion and other revenues of N3.7 trillion.

Specifically, the total allocation to the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and the four parastatals in the budget was N79.297 billion, comprising total recurrent expenditure of N75.96 billion and total capital allocation of N3.337 billion, representing 95.79 percent and 4.21 percent of total allocation to the ministry respectively.

The staff of the DPR are to receive the highest salary and emoluments in the petroleum industry in 2020, with N37.52 billion budgeted for the agency as personnel cost, representing 50.26 percent of the total personnel cost of the entire industry.