The Senate reversed itself on Wednesday on the amendments it made to the 2024 Appropriation Act by repealing and reenacting the law.
The repeal and reenactment now fully incorporated the N6.2trillion President Bola Tinubu requested the National Assembly to add to the budget on July 23 to cover funding gaps for legacy projects and the new national minimum wage of N70,000.
Recall that the addition had raised the total budget figure from the initial N28.7tn to N35.055tn.
But, the legislature had passed the addition as an “amendment” to the budget, a term which didn’t properly capture the decision of the lawmakers.
During Wednesday’s plenary, the Senate repealed the entire 2024 Act and reenacted it with the new title, “2024 Appropriation Act (Repeal and Reenactment) Bill”, passing it for first, second and third readings.
It captured N35.055tn as the budget for 2024.
The repeal and reenactment followed a motion moved by the Leader of the Senate, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele (APC, Ekiti-Central).
A breakdown showed that N1.7tn was retained for statutory transfers: N8.2tn for debt service; N11.2tn for recurrent expenditure; N13.7tn for contribution to the development fund for capital projects of the federation.
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