Senate Passes 2024 Budget, Raises Appropriation By N1.2tn

The Nigerian Senate has passed the 2024 Appropriation Bill submitted to it by President Bola Tinubu, Daily Trust reports.

The Senate, at plenary on Saturday afternoon, passed the N28,777,404,073,861 budget, which it increased by about N1.2tn.

The President had presented N27.5tn to the joint chambers of the National Assembly on November 29, 2023.

The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, who presided over the sitting, said the National Assembly approved that Statutory Transfers would be N1,742,786,708,150, Debt Service would gulp N8,270,960,606,831; Recurrent Non-debt Expenditure would be N8,768,513,380,852 , while N9,995,143,298,028 would be for contribution to development fund for capital expenditure.

The passage followed the consideration of a report by the Appropriations Committee on the 2024 Appropriations Bill presented by its chair, Senator Adeola Olamilekan (APC, Ogun).

The borrowing plan submitted by the President was also approved by the Senate.

Akpabio noted that the document would immediately be transmitted to the President for his assent so that implementation could begin by January 1.

The Senate also increased the exchange rate from N750 to N800 per dollar while the 1.78mbpd daily oil production, US$77.96 oil benchmark price and GDP growth rate of 3.88% were approved as proposed by the executive arm of government.