President Bola Tinubu has signed the N28.7 trillion 2024 Appropriation Bill into law, keeping with his avowed commitment to maintain a timeous, predictable, and efficient budget cycle.
Shortly after returning to Abuja from Lagos on Monday from a week-long holiday, the President assented to the Appropriation Bill at a brief ceremony at the Presidential Villa.
Present at the ceremony were Senate President Godswill Akpabio, and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Tajudeen Abbas.
The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Chief Wale Edun; Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Senator Atiku Bagudu; and National Security Adviser, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, were also at the event.
Also in attendance were the Chief of Staff to the President, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila; National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje; and Chairman of the Senate Appropriation Committee, Senator Olamilekan Adeola, among others.
The 2024 budget is N1.2 trillion higher than the N27.5 trillion proposal the President presented to a joint session of the National Assembly on 29th November 2023.
Last Friday, the Senate increased the 2024 budget by N1.2 trillion, from the initial sum of N27.5 trillion to N28.7 trillion.
According to the report submitted by the Senate’s Appropriation Committee, led by Senator Solomon Adeola, aggregate expenditure was pegged at N28,777,404.073.861; statutory transfers at N1,742,786,788,150; recurrent expenditure at N8,768.5330,852; capital expenditure at N9,995,143,298,028 and GDP at 3.88 per cent.
At the signing of the bill, President Tinubu assured Nigerians that the implementation of the budget would be efficiently pursued and vigorously monitored, adding: “All the institutional mechanisms shall be held to account in ensuring diligent implementation”.
“All MDAs Ministries, Departments and Agencies) have been directed to take responsibility and provide monthly Budget Performance Reports to the Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning, which in turn shall ensure the veracity of such. The Minister of Finance and Co-ordinating Minister of the Economy shall hold regular reviews with the Economic Management Team and, in addition, I shall Chair periodic Economic Coordination Council meetings”.
The top priorities of the budget trillion are defence and internal security, job creation, macro-economic stability, improved investment environment, human capital development, poverty reduction, and social security.
The President emphasized that his commitment to enhance investment promotion while creating a rules-based society that favours no individual over the law begins with important reforms in the Nigerian judiciary, the funding for which is captured in the 2024 Appropriation Act.
“Funding the judiciary is a major element in our effort to support a just, rules-based society. Statutory transfer to the Judiciary has been increased from 165 billion naira to 342 billion naira”, President Tinubu said.
Some of the key estimates are capital expenditure, N10 trillion; recurrent expenditure, N8.8 trillion; debt service, N8.2 trillion, and statutory transfers, N1.7 trillion.
