Nigeria’s Senate and House of Representatives have passed the 2017 budget, set at 7.44 trillion naira ($24.4 billion), on Thursday, lawmakers said.
Both chambers had agreed to a higher volume than the draft worth 7.298 trillion naira budget submitted by President Muhammadu Buhari to lawmakers in December.
The 2017 budget now awaits the assent of Nigeria’s acting President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo.
2017 budget padded with N143bn – National Assembly
The Appropriation Bill assumes an oil price of $44.5 a barrel and foreign borrowing of 175.9 billion naira and domestic borrowing of 1.488 trillion naira, lawmakers said.
#PromiseKept breakdown of @NGRSenate budget. full 33 pages of entire nass budget to be uploaded online shortly #Opennass pic.twitter.com/BFxIA2iIWj
— The Nigerian Senate (@NGRSenate) May 11, 2017
The Appropriation Bill must be passed by lawmakers before the president can sign it into law.
President Buhari is on medical leave in Britain and on Sunday handed over power to his deputy Yemi Osinbajo.
Nigeria is in its second year of recession brought on by low oil prices which have slashed government revenues, weakened the naira currency and caused chronic dollar shortages.
Last year’s budget – passed in May 2016 – was delayed for months due to disagreements between lawmakers and the presidency, cutting the supply of government money and deepening the economic crisis.
It would be recalled that the House of Representatives on Tuesday received the report of 2017 N7.30 trillion Budget proposal from its Committee on Appropriation for final consideration.
The report indicated that the committee increased the figures to N7.44 trillion, representing an addition of about N143 billion to the one presented by Buhari on December 14, 2016.
After the receipt of the bill, the House referred it to the Appropriation Committee on January 26, 2017, but its processing suffered delay due to the inability of other committees to tidy their reports in time.
Presenting the report at plenary, Chairman of the committee, Rep. Mustapha Dawaki, said that the committee worked with other committees in the House to arrive at the new figure for the budget.
According to the report, N434.4 billion is for statutory transfer, N1.84 trillion for debt servicing and N177.46 billion is for sinking Fund for maturing bonds.
The committee appropriated N2.99 trillion for recurrent (Non-Debt) expenditure, while N2.17 trillion was provided for contribution to the development fund for Capital Expenditure.
