The House of Representatives has highlighted why it increased the 2024 budget by N1.2 trillion.
Recall that the 10th Senate, under the leadership of Senator Godswill Akpabio, passed the 2024 Appropriation Bill.
The budget was passed after its size was increased from N27.5 trillion, as proposed by President Bola Tinubu, to N28.7 trillion.
The budget size was increased by N1.2 trillion, a development that has generated mixed reactions among concerned Nigerians.
However, the Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations, Abubakar Kabir Abubakar, explained that the increase was due to the rising inflation and the promise by the Government Owned Enterprises (GOEs) to increase their revenue to N700 billion.
Abubakar disclosed this while speaking during the presentation of the Appropriation Bill for passage at the Special Plenary on Saturday.
READ ALSO: Senate Passes 2024 Budget, Increases It By N1.2trn
He said, “We have inflation and exchange rate for the dollar, the executive proposed N750 to the dollar, but after we studied carefully, we looked at it, it is unrealistic.
“So we increased to N800. Also we had a meeting with the GOEs, we believe that their submission is not enough. They have agreed to increase their revenue. That is how we are able to get that N1.2 trillion, which we applied to capital.
“This is the first time the capital is bigger than recurrent. We appropriate about N850 billion to education, we gave them a lot of money. I believe this budget is brilliant, and Nigerians will see a lot of impacts.”
A 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 N9,995,143,298,028 as a contribution to a development fund for capital expenditure.
