Tinubu to sign on Sunday as National Assembly raises budget to N28.77trillion

The National Assembly has raised the 2024 national budget from from N27.5 trillion to N28.77 trillion.

The Senate said the difference of N1.2 trillion arose from additional request feom 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, made the disclosure on Saturday.

“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,” Olamilekan said.

“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)
Reduction from Service Wide.”

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

It adopted the oil price benchmark of 77.96 US 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 GDP growth rate remained 3.88 per cent.

The budget as passed include aggregate expenditure of 28.777,404,073,861 trillion, statutory transfers of N1,742,786,788,150, and capital expenditure of 9,995,143,298,028.

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 that “the 2024 Appropriation Bill was presented to the National Assembly late adding that “this is against the Fiscal Responsibility Act which requires the Bill be presented not later than three (3) 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 that the Executive should ensure compliance with the provisions of relevant/extant laws as it concerns GOES

It also stated that agencies removed from FGN 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 on Sunday.

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