At last, House of Reps passes Buhari’s last budget for 2023, raising it from N20.51 trn to N21.82trn

After back and forth on delayed passage of the 2023 budget, the House of Representatives on Wednesday passed the appropriation bill, increasing the budget from N20.51 trillion to N21.82 trillion.

About N1.31 trillion has been injected into the budget by the lawmakers including their Constituency projects.

Persecondnews recalls that President Muhammadu Buhari had in October presented N21.82 trillion budget estimates to the National Assembly.

Last week, Senate President Ahmad Lawan, had blamed the Executive arm of government for the delay in passing the budget last week as scheduled due to irreconcilable figures detected by Appropriations committees of both chambers of the National Assembly.

Lawan said as a result of the long cleaning process the draft budget proposal underwent, Committees on Appropriations from both Chambers, couldn’t meet up with the submission of the report for consideration and passage.

He blamed the executive arm of government for submitting the budget proposal very late and when it was laid, it came with errors.

He also said that the process of cleaning the errors contained in the Appropriations bill was concluded on December 22, adding that the two chambers have to harmonize the copy to be able to present the report for passage by both chambers on Wednesday 28th, 2022.

Presenting the report of the Committee on Appropriations, the Chairman, Rep. Muktar Betara lauded the chairmen and members of the various committees.

He also lauded their efforts for keeping to the January to December budget calendar initiated by the current 9th National Assembly.

A breakdown shows that out of the total sum, N967.48 billion is for statutory transfers, N6.55 trillion is for debt service, while N8.32 trillion is for recurrent (non-debt) expenditure.

The sum of N5.97 trillion is also for contribution to the development fund for capital expenditure for the year ending.