By Fatima Saka
The National Assembly passed the 2024 budget on Saturday and increased the budget from N27.5 trillion presented by President Bola Tinubu in November to N28.7 trillion, with an increase of about N1.2 trillion.
The Two Chambers passed the 2024 budget both the Senate and the House increased the budget from N27.5 trillion presented by President Bola Tinubu in November to N28. 7 trillion.
Also, the benchmark of oil price at $77.96 per barrel of crude oil to reflect the current market values of the product in the international market.
The federal lawmakers approved the oil production rate of 1.78 million barrels per day and the exchange rate of N800 to a US dollar.
Firs Revenue Fund
The GDP growth rate was pegged at 3.88 percent and the budget deficit was approved at N9.18 trillion.
After the bill was read for the third time and passed
The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, congratulates lawmakers for their joint worked, adding that for the session, which was very uncommon, and a new innovation, where the Senate committees and the House of Representative committees jointly met together to discuss with all the MPs and the government owned enterprises and the ministries, ministers to conduct the affairs of the budget,
Akpabio expressed that ” reducing the time because of the need for us to ensure that the Nigerians realize the promise we made to them, so this ensured that we had limited time available for this crucial exercise.
“I express my gratitude to the various committees of the Senate and this time particularly the appropriation committee for the exceptional efforts for ensuring the passage of this vital appropriation bill.
“We will continue to work to ensure that the bill is promptly transmitted to Mr. President for his immediate assets and enabling its implementation to commence in January 2024.”
The budget was passed after considering a report presented by Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Adeola Olamilekan (APC, Ogun West).
The Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, Abubakar Bichi (APC Kano), presented the report at the lower chamber.
Mr Olamilekan, while presenting the report, recommended that N1.7 trillion be approved for Statutory Transfers and N8 2 trillion be approved for Debt service.
The committee chairman also recommended that N8.7 trillion be approved as recurrent (non-debt) expenditure and N9.9 trillion be approved as capital expenditure.
The lawmaker explained that the increase in the appropriation was as a result of a request for additional funding of items which were not listed in the Appropriation Bill as submitted by President Tinubu.
The Senate President said that National Assembly Committee on Appropriation observed inadequate funding in the budgetary allocations of some Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the federal government
Breakdown
Breakdown of the Appropriation Bill passed by the National Assembly indicates that N1, 742,786, 788,150 is for statutory transfers; N8, 270, 960,606,831, debt servicing; N8, 768, 513, 380, 852,
recurrent (non debt) expenditure and N 9,995, 143,298,028 as contribution to development fund for capital expenditure.
For statutory transfers, the
National Judicial Council got the sum of N341,625,739,236
Niger-Delta Development Commission
N338,924,732,832, 28
Universal Basic Education Commission
N263,043,551,250, 29 ;Senate
N 49,144,916,519 ; House of Representatives, N78,624,487,169.
For the Presidency N97,913,321,898, 40
and N82,922,332,768 , 163 recurrent and capital respectively.
Also, the Ministry of Defence got
N1,308,493,771,066, 41 as recurrent and N339,286,557,299 for capital; Ministry of Works got N39,374,777,404, 68 and N892,461,262,656 191 for recurrent and capital expenditure respectively.
Similarly, Ministry of Education got N857,134,132,339, 80 for recurrent and
N417,579,107,875, 203 for capital.
