.Tinubu will sign budget today, says Senate

The National Assembly has raised the 2024 budget from N27.5 trillion to N28.77 trillion. The Senate said the difference of N1.2 trillion arose from additional request from the executive arm of government for some agencies after the initial proposal was submitted by the President.

Chairman of Senate’s Committee on Appropriation, Solomon Olamilekan, said: “Through the closely and harmonious appropriation process, the Executive forwarded request for additional funding and some items of expenditure to the Committee, which were not included in the bill as submitted by the President. In order to accommodate the requests, the following adjustments have been made on the bill: Foreign Exchange differential, GOE’s revenue increased, GOE’s personnel reduction, service wide vote (wage adjustment) and reduction from service wide.”

At a special session, yesterday, during which appropriation bill was passed, the Senate also raised the exchange rate assumption from N750/dollars to N800/dollars.

It adopted the oil price benchmark of 77.96 dollars per barrel and daily oil production estimate of 1.78 million barrels per day.

The budget deficit remained N9.18 trillion just as assumption on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate remained 3.88 per cent. The budget as passed include aggregate expenditure of N28.777,404,073,861 trillion, statutory transfers of N1,742,786,788,150, and capital expenditure of N9,995,143,298,028.

In the approved budget, the amount of N9,178,930,385,914 is for aggregate financing items, which include the sum of N7,828,529,477,860 trillion for debt financing. Asset sale/privatisation is N298,486,421,740 billion. Multilateral/bilateral project-tied loans is N1,051,914,486,314 trillion.

In passing the budget, the Senate noted, “the 2024 Appropriation Bill was presented to the National Assembly late, adding, “this is against the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which requires the bill be presented not later than three months before the next financial year, which puts intense pressure on the processing of the bill.”

It recommended that to ensure thorough scrutiny of budget proposal, the executives should, henceforth, comply with the provisions of the Fiscal Responsibility Act.

The senate asked the executive should ensure compliance with the provisions of relevant/extant laws as it concerns GOES.

It also stated that agencies removed from the Federal Government budget should step up their revenue generation, fund itself and remit more to the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

Meanwhile, the Senate assured yesterday that the President will sign the budget bill today.

Olamilekan, briefing journalists at the end of Senate session, explained that no law stopped the President from signing budget on Sunday.