President Bola Tinubu on Monday afternoon signed into law the 2024 Appropriation Bill at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. Tinubu signed the N28.7tn budget document earlier approved by the National Assembly hours after he arrived in Abuja from Lagos where he spent the past week holidaying. The budget is N1.2tn higher than the budget he proposed to a joint session of the National Assembly on November 29, 2023. Then, the President had pegged the budget deficit for the 2024 fiscal year at N9.18tn.
He stated, “The N9.18tn deficit is lower than the N13.78tn deficit recorded in 2023 which represents 6.11 per cent of GDP. “The deficit will be financed by new borrowings totalling N7.83tn, N298.49BN from Privatisation Proceeds and N1.05 trillion drawdown on multilateral and bilateral loans secured for specific development projects.”
He also emphasized the need to maintain the January-December implementation cycle saying “Our goal is to ensure that the Appropriation Act comes into effect on January 1, 2024,” On Friday, December 29, 2023, the Senate increased the 2024 budget by N1.2tn, moving the budget from N27.5tn to N28.7tn.
According to the report submitted by the 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.
