By Haruna Salami
The Senate on Saturday passed the 2024 budget increasing it to N28.7 trillion from the N27.5 trillion presented by President Bola Tinubu.
Highlights of the budget shows statutory transfer of N1.74 trillion, debt servicing N8.27 trillion, recurrent expenditure N8.76 trillion with exchange rate of the naira adjusted from N750 to the dollar proposed by the executive to N800, while gross domestic product (GDP) was put at 3.88.
The passage of the bill, followed the approval of report of the Senate Committee on Appropriation presented by the committee chairman, Sen. Solomon Adeola at plenary on Saturday.
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 said the committee adopted the 77.96 dollar per barrel oil benchmark, 1.78 mbpd and 800 dollar exchange rate to naira as against 750 dollars proposed by the executive.
He said the committee, in processing the bill, worked closely with the executive harmoniously, adding that the executive forwarded request for additional funding of some items on expenditure that were not included in the bill as submitted by the President.
However, Adeola 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 removal of some agencies 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 proposal, the executives should comply with the provisions of the Fiscal Responsibility Act” and also urged the executive to ensure compliance with the provisions of relevant extant laws, as it concerns government agencies.
He assured that President Bola Tinubu will assent to the budget on Sunday to ensure the January to December budgetary cycle already implemented in the last four years was maintained.
