Senate Jerks Up 2024 Budget By N1.2trillion

THE Senate has passed the 2024 Appropriation Bill, increasing the budget from the N27.5 trillion presented by President Bola Tinubu to N28.7 trillion.

The upper legislative chamber increased the proposed budget with about N1.2 trillion.

The passage of the bill followed the approval of the report of the Senate Committee on Appropriation at plenary on Saturday.

While presenting the report, Senator Solomon Adeola said that the committee adopted the Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Paper, MTEF/FSP, approved by National Assembly in preparing the budget.

He stated the committee adopted the 77.96 dollar per barrel oil benchmark 1.78mbpd and 800 dollar exchange rate to naira as against 750 dollars proposed by the executive.

He listed the highlights of the bill to include a total aggregate expenditure of N28.7 trillion, statutory transfers of N1.7 trillion, and recurrent expenditure of N8.7 trillion, while the capital expenditure component stood at N9.9 trillon.

According to him, the committee in processing the bill worked closely with the executive.

He said through the harmonious appropriation process, the executive forwarded request for additional funding of some items on expenditure that were not included in the bill as submitted by the President.

He, however said that the committee observed that the 2024 Appropriation Bill was presented to the National Assembly late.