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The Senate at a special plenary on Monday passed the 2021 budget totalling N13.5 trillion.
In the fiscal document, N3.324 trillion was earmarked for debt servicing; N4.1 trillion for capital expenditure; N5.6 trillion for recurrent and N496 billion for statutory transfer.
The budget was increased by N505 billion.
The appropriation bill was passed by the senate onafter Jibrin Barau, chairman of the committee on appropriation, presented a report.
While presenting his report, Barau noted that the COVID-19 pandemic affected all sectors of the economy.
The chairman said the executive arm of government could present a supplementary budget owing to the fact that the country’s crude oil price is on the rise.
“That the impact of COVID-19 has affected all facets of life is an understatement. There is a remarkable increase of Nigeria’s oil price,”
“In view of increasing oil prices, the executive may wish to submit a supplementary bill to lift the country out of recession,” Barau said.
Also, the House of Representatives passed the N13.6 trillion 2021 budget on Monday in Abuja.
The passage followed the adoption of a report by the Chairman, House Committee on Appropriation, Aliyu Betara (APC-Borno).
He said the Bill is to authorise the issue from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation the sum of N13,588,027,886,175 of which N496.5 billion is for statutory transfers.
Betara added that N3.3 billion is for debt servicing, while N5.6 trillion is for recurrent non-debt expenditure.
He further stated that N4.1 trillion is for contribution to the Development Fund for capital expenditure for 2021.
Speaker, House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, said that ninth National Assembly passed the budget in record time to keep to the promise made during its inauguration.
“We will maintain this tempo so that our successors can continue from where we stopped,’’ he said.
President Muhammadu Buhari had presented N13.082 trillion to the National Assembly on October 8.
The budget is based on an exchange rate benchmark of N379/$ and crude oil production of 1.86 million barrels per day at $40/barrel.
Capital expenditure in the budget is estimated at N2.083 trillion which represents 29 percent of the total budget.
It targets three percent GDP growth and 11.95 percent inflation.
However, with the increase of the total budget size, the capital expenditure is now N4.125 trillion.