The National Assembly on Saturday passed the 2024 Appropriation Bill proposed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The budget size was increased from N27.5 trillion to N28.7 trillion – an addition of N1.2 trillion.
The bill was passed for the third reading at the Senate after chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriation, Solomon Olamilekan, presented a report for consideration.
The budget has N1.7 trillion as statutory transfers, N8.7 trillion as recurrent expenditure, and N9.9 trillion as capital expenditure.
The appropriation bill was also passed for a third reading by the lower legislative chamber after Abubakar Bichi, Chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, presented a report.
Bichi, while presenting his report, said a one-day town hall meeting where citizens made contributions to the budget was held.
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According to him the joint Committee on Appropriations worked closely with the executive on the budget
Recall that on November 29, Tinubu gave a joint session of the National Assembly a budget proposal totaling N27.5 trillion and pegged the budget deficit for the 2024 fiscal year at N9.18 trillion.
Tinubu stated, “The N9.18 trillion deficit is lower than the N13.78 trillion deficit recorded in 2023 which represents 6.11 per cent of GDP.
“The deficit will be financed by new borrowings totalling N7.83tn, N298.49BN from Privatisation Proceeds and N1.05 trillion drawdown on multilateral and bilateral loans secured for specific development projects.”
Meanwhile, the President must sign the budget within the next 24 hours in order to keep up with the January-December budget cycle.
