National Assembly Approves N21.82 Trillion as 2023 Budget

The National Assembly has passed the 2023 appropriation bill after raising the N20.51 trillion proposed bill presented by President Muhammadu Buhari to N1.32 trillion, to N21.82 trillion.

Recall that President Muhammadu Buhari had on Friday, October 7th, 2022 proposed and laid a N20.51 trillion Appropriation bill for consideration by both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

A breakdown of the budget indicates N967.5 billion for statutory transfers, N6.6 trillion for debt servicing, N8.3 trillion for recurrent expenditure, and N5.9 trillion for capital expenditure.

Investors King understands that the National Assembly deferred the passage of the 2023 budget from last week over what the Senate President described as “problems discovered in it”. 

Some of the key items in the budget include the N285 billion to the Federal Ministry of Defence, N134.9 billion to the Federal Ministry of Health, N195.5 billion to the Federal Ministry of Power and N153.7 billion to the Federal Ministry of Education.

Similarly, the Tertiary Institutions Revitalisation Fund of N300 billion and salary renegotiation of N170 billion were captured in the approved budget. These were to address some of the prevailing concerns of the Academic Staff Union of Universities. 

Meanwhile, the Senate also passed the 2022 supplementary budget of N819.5 billion. The supplementary budget is to address food security following devastating floods across the country as well as damages to road infrastructure and the water sector.

President Buhari had, through an executive communication last week, sought the approval of the National Assembly for a N819.54bn supplementary budget.

The request, according to the president, would form part of the 2022 Appropriation Act.

A breakdown of the supplementary budget as submitted by the Committee of Finance shows that the Ministry of Agriculture is to get N69 billion, the Ministry of Water Resources – N15.5 billion, FCT – N30 billion, Ministry of Works and Housing – N704 billion.