He urged the removed agencies to enhance revenue generation, fund themselves, and contribute more to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF).
The bill passed has aggregate expenditure pegged at N28,777,404,073,861; statutory transfers amounting to N1,742,786,788,150; recurrent expenditure of N8,768,5330,852; capital expenditure of N9,995,143,298,028 and GDP at 3.88 per cent.
After presenting the report, the Senate dissolved into the Committee of Supply, which considered and passed the budget.
The Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio, announced the approval of the budget after the majority of the senators supported it through a voice vote at the special plenary.
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives also approved the sum of N28.777 trillion in expenditure for the 2024 fiscal year following the approval of the report by the Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, Hon. Abubakar Bichi.
According to the breakdown of the report by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Tajudeen Abbas, the N28.777 trillion approved was N1.2 trillion higher than the N27.504 trillion presented by President Tinubu during the joint session of the National Assembly on November 29, 2023.
Bichi explained that the N1.2trillion increase was due to inflation and an exchange rate increase from N750 to N800, adding that Government-owned enterprises also agreed to increase their revenues.
He noted that the 2024 appropriation was the first time the capital expenditure was bigger than the recurrent expenditure.
The breakdown of the N28.777 trillion approved budget showed that the sum of N1.743trillion is for statutory transfers; N8.271trillion is for debt service; N8.769trillion is for recurrent (non-debt) expenditure, while N9.995trillion is for capital expenditure for the year ending December 31, 2024.
The N9.179 trillion fiscal deficit for the year under review is to be financed through asset sales/privatisation – N298,486,421,740; multilateral/bilateral project -tied loans – N1,051,914,486,314 and debt financing – N7,828,529,477,860.
For the total debt service of N8.271 trillion approved for the year 2024, the sum of N5.3 trillion is to be incurred through domestic debts – including Ways and Means; N2.748 trillion through foreign debts while the Sinking Fund for the retirement of maturing Promissory Notes stands at N223.662 billion.
