The Chairman, House Committee on Appropriation, Abubakar Bichi, said the increment of the N26.5 trillion 2024 budget by N1.2 trillion was due to revenue prospects from Government Owned Enterprises and possible inflation.
Bichi addressed newsmen at the National Assembly Complex on Saturday shortly after the passage of the 2024 budget estimates.
He said: “We have inflation and exchange rate for the dollar.
“The executive proposed N750 to the dollar, but after we studied carefully, we looked at it and we knew it was unrealistic.
“So we increased it to N800.
“And also we had a meeting with government-owned enterprises and we believe that their submissions are not enough.
“They have agreed to increase their revenue to N700 billion.
“That was how we were able to get that N1.2 trillion, which we applied to capital.
“This is the first time the capital is bigger than recurrent.
“We appropriated about N850 billion to education.
…
“We gave them a lot of money.
“I believe this budget is brilliant and Nigerians will see a lot of impacts.”
The Senate passed the 2024 budget for a third reading on Saturday and also increased the bill by N1.2 trillion, moving the budget from N27.5 trillion to N28.7 trillion.
President Bola Tinubu on November 29, 2023 presented a total of N27.5 trillion proposed budget to a joint session of the National Assembly.
