The Senate has approved the 2024 Appropriation Bill of N28.7 trillion, against the N27.5 trillion estimate presented by President Bola Tinubu.
The upper chamber gave its approval to the bill during the Saturday plenary. The budget size was increased by N1.2 trillion.
The approved budget includes N1.7 trillion for statutory transfers, N8.7 trillion for recurrent expenditure, and N9.9 trillion for capital expenditure.
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Presenting the report the committee chairman, Sen. Solomon Adeola, said that the Committee adopted the Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Paper (MTEF/FSP) approved by the National Assembly in preparing the budget.
He said 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 trillion.
He said the committee in processing the bill worked closely with the executive harmoniously. He said through the close and harmonious appropriation process, the executive forwarded a 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.
This, he said, was against the Fiscal Responsibility Act that required the Bill to be presented not later than three months before the next financial year.
Adeola also said there were inconsistencies in the revenue of some government-owned enterprises. (GOEs). He also said that there was the removal of some agency personnel costs from the Federal Government payroll and inadequate funding in some allocation of government Ministries, Departments and Agencies(MDAs).
Adeola said to ensure thorough scrutiny of budget proposals, the executives should comply with the provisions of the Fiscal Responsibility Act. He also urged the executive to ensure compliance with the provisions of relevant extant laws, as it concerns government agencies.
He urged agencies removed from the federal government budget to step up their revenue generation, fund itself and remit more to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF).
