Senate has passed the 2024 budget and raised the estimates by N1.2tn.
Glamtush reports that the Senate has passed the 2024 budget for a third reading.
This online platform understands that the Senate also increased the bill by a total of N1.2tn, moving the budget from N27.5tn to N28.7tn.
The budget was passed following a voice vote by the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio.
Before then, the Senate had considered the report of the Appropriation Bill presented by the Chairman of the Appropriation Committee, Senator Adeola Solomon.
In the bill passed, the sum of 1,742,786,788,150 was earmarked for statutory transfers, 8,270,960,606,831 for debt servicing, 8,768, 513, 380, 852 for recurrent expenditure while 9,995,143,143,298,028 was for capital expenditure.
The Senate said that in order to accommodate further requests from the Executive for additional funding, the Committee on Appropriation made some adjustments to the bill.
Some of the adjustments made include foreign exchange differential, increase of Government-Owned Enterprises’ (GOEs’) revenue, GOE’s personnel reduction, Service Wide vote (wage adjustment) and reduction from Service Wide.
President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday, November 29, presented a total of N27.5tn to a joint section of the National Assembly.
The President pegged the budget deficit for the 2024 fiscal year at N9.18 tn.
He said the deficit represents 3.88 per cent of Nigeria’s gross domestic product.
Christened the ‘Budget of Renewed Hope’, the President said it would ensure micro-economic stability, poverty reduction, greater access to social security, amongst others.
Tinubu stated, “The N9.18 trillion deficit is lower than the “N13.78 trillion naira 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 Privatization Proceeds and 1.05 trillion naira drawdown on multilateral and bilateral loans secured for specific development projects.”
The President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, had assured Nigerians that the bill would be transmitted to the President for expedited passage into law for it to come into effect on January 1, 2024.
