By Kingsley Okoye
The Senate has passed the N28.7trillion 2024 Appropriation Bill, increasing the budget from the N27.5trillion presented by President Bola Tinubu with about N1.2 trillion.
The passage of the bill, followed the approval of report of the Senate Committee on Appropriation at plenary on Saturday.
Presenting the report the committee chairman, Sen.Solomon 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 1.78mbpd and 800 dollar exchange rate to naira as against 750 dollars proposed by the executive.
He listed the highlights of the bill to include a total aggregate expenditure of N28.7trillon, statutory transfers of N1.7trillion,recurrent expenditure of N8.7 trillion,while the capital expenditure component stood at N9.9trillon.
He said the committee in processing the bill worked closely with the executive harmoniously.
He said through the closely and harmonious appropriation process, the executive forwarded request for additional funding of some items on expenditure that were not included in the bill as submitted by the President.
He,however 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.
He also urged the executive to ensure compliance with the provisions of relevant extant laws, as it concerns government agencies.
He urged agencies removed from federal government budget to step up their revenue generation, fund itself and remit more to Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF).
He also called for provision of additional funds to some MDAs not appropriately funded.
He urged the executive to to sustain the increase on capital component over recurrent to ensure developmental programmes across the country.
(NAN)
