The National Assembly on Saturday passed the 2024 Appropriation Bill, increasing the sum to ₦28.7 trillion from the initial ₦27.5 trillion presented by President Bola Tinubu late November.

The fiscal plan increased by N1.2 trillion from the initial N27.5 trillion to N28,777 trillion.

The  lawmakers in the Senate and the House of Representatives passed the bill after raising the budget size by N1.2 trillion.

In the bill passed, the sum of 1,742,786,788,150 was earmarked for statutory transfers, 8,270,960,606,831 for debt servicing, 8,768, 513, 380, 852 for recurrent expenditure while 9,995,143,143,298,028 was for capital expenditure.

The Senate said that in order to accommodate further requests from the Executive for additional funding, the Committee on Appropriation made some adjustments to the bill.

Some of the adjustments made include foreign exchange differential, increase of Government-Owned Enterprises’ (GOEs’) revenue, GOE’s personnel reduction, Service Wide vote (wage adjustment) and reduction from Service Wide.

President Bola Tinubu had late November presented the 2024 budget estimates of N27.5trn to the National Assembly.

Christened the ‘Budget of Renewed Hope’, the President said it would ensure micro-economic stability, poverty reduction, greater access to social security, amongst others.

The President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, had assured Nigerians that the bill would be transmitted to the President for expedited passage into law for it to come into effect on January 1, 2024.

END.