Reps pass bill to raise 2024 Budget to N35.06tn

The House of Representatives, on Tuesday, passed the supplementary bill seeking to increase the 2024 Appropriation Act from N28.7tn to N35.06tn.

The House had on Wednesday, July 17, passed the N6.2tn extra-budgetary proposal by President Bola Tinubu and on Tuesday, the bill scaled the third reading with Clauses 1 to 13 considered and approved at the Committee of Supply.

A breakdown of the proposed N35.06tn for the 2024 fiscal year showed that N1.74tn is earmarked for statutory transfers; N8.27tn for debt service; N11.2tn for recurrent expenditure while N13.77tn is slated as a contribution to the Development Fund for capital expenditure for the year ending December 31, 2024.

Leading the debate on the general principle of the bill, the Chairman, House Committee on Appropriation, Abubakar Bichi, who presented the harmonised joint Senate and House report on the budget, pleaded for the adoption of the recommendations of the ommittee.

Addressing journalists shortly after the passage of the budget, Bichi said, “As you can see, we have passed the N6.2tn budget of Mr President, the budget of Renewed Nope.

“N3.2tn is for capital expenditure while about N3tn will go to the current. And as I said last time, the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway is a critical road infrastructure that Mr President wants to actualise.

“The Lagos-Calabar highway covers about nine states, which is about 700-kilometre road projects. Also, the Sokoto-Badagry highway is critical, covering about seven states. It covers about 1,000km. We have another one from Ebonyi, all the way from Abuja, from the Trans-Saharan section. We need some funding to execute these important projects.”

He added that strategic rail projects passing through Abuja, Katsina, Kaduna, Kano, and Katsina up to Maradi in Niger Republic will be funded from the budget.

He pledged the readiness of the parliament to engage the various Ministries, Departments and Agencies to ensure the full implementation of the budget.

He added, “We engaged both the Minister of Budget and the implementation agencies – Minister of Transportatiom, Minister of Works, and Minister of Water Resources. They promised that as long as we pass this budget, the implementation will be 100 per cent.

“We had an engagement with the Minister of Budget and National Planning and she confirmed that the funding is there and the projects will commence.”

On whether the N3tn approved for the payment of the N70,000 minimum is enough, Bichi said, “Absolutely, we did our calculations. We got the data from the Accountant General of the Federation’s office before we applied this figure.

“We know that the money is enough from now till December 31 to take care of the N70,000 minimum. Nigeria should be expecting dividends of democracy.”