>
Akinwande Soji-Ojo
The Senate has passed the 2024 budget.
The Senate also increased the appropriation bill by a total of N1.2 trillion, moving the budget from N27.5 trillion to N28.7 trillion.
The budget was passed following a voice vote by the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio.
Before then, the Senate had considered the report submitted by the Chairman of the Appropriation Committee, Senator Adeola Solomon.
The Senate pegged the aggregate expenditure at 28,777,404.073.861; statutory transfers -1,742,786,788,150; recurrent expenditure- 8,768.5330,852 ; capital expenditure- 9,995,143,298,028 and GDP at 3.88%
President Bola Tinubu had on Wednesday, November 29, presented a total of N27.5 trillion to a joint session of the National Assembly.
The president pegged the budget deficit for the 2024 fiscal year at N9.18 trillion.
He said the deficit represents 3.88 per cent of Nigeria’s gross domestic product
“The N9.18 trillion deficit is lower than the “N13.78 trillion ndeficit recorded in 2023, which represents 6.11 per cent of GDP.
“The deficit will be financed by new borrowings totalling N7.83 trillion, N298.49 billion from Privatization Proceeds and 1.05 trillion naira drawdown on multilateral and bilateral loans secured for specific development projects,” Tinubu had said.
The Senate had on December 1, passed the budget for a second reading.