ABUJA (Sundiata Post) – The Senate and the House of Representatives, yesterday, passed the N6.2 trillion 2024 Appropriation Act (Amendment Bill) 2024, raising the 2024 budget to N35 trillion.
The bill was transmitted to the National Assembly last Wednesday July 17th 2024, by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Out of the N6,222,595,926,139, the sum of N3, 222,595,926,139.00 is meant for capital expenditure and the sum of N3,000,000,000,000 is for Recurrent Expenditure.
The National Assembly had last week, its rules to accommodate the first and second reading and referred it to the Committee on Appropriations for further legislative action.
Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriation, Solomon Adeola, told his colleagues that the N28,777,404,073,861 2024 Appropriation Bill was passed into law by the National Assembly, last year and was subsequently assented to by the President on January, 1, 2024.
Adeola said: “The 2024 Appropriation Act (Amendment) Bill seeks to among others, make available additional funds for Renewed Hope Infrastructure Development Projects, to be undertaken across the country and to meet other recurrent expenditure requirements, such as the minimum wage increase necessary for effective governance of the Federation.
“Considering the fact that the Committee was mandated to report back to the Senate on the Bill within one week, the Senate Committee on Appropriations consulted widely with the leadership of the Committee and other critical stakeholders.
“More significantly, it met and deliberated with the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Senator Atiku Bagudu and deliberated on the scope of the Bill, as well as, it’s source of funding the projects.
“Subsequently, the Committee processed the Bill together with its House counterpart, in line with relevant rules of legislative practice and procedures.”
He said the Committee observed the need to provide the government equity component of the Renewed Hope Infrastructure Projects and other critical projects to be undertaken across the country and other recurrent expenditure requirements, like the provision for the new minimum wage, among others, which necessitated the request for the Amendment of the 2024 Appropriation Act.
He said the additional expenditure contained in the Amendment Bill would be financed by the one-time windfall tax on banks’ foreign exchange profits for the year 2023 as approved by the National Assembly.
He recommended the authorisation and issuance from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation, the sum of N35,055,536,770,218
The Ogun West lawmaker said, N1,742, 786,788,150 would be for Statutory Transfers, N8,270,960,606,831 for Debt Service, and 11,268,513,380,853 for Recurrent (Non-Debt) Expenditure.
Adeola added that the sum of N13,773,275,994,384 would be for contribution to the Development Fund for Capital Expenditure for the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2024
In the sectoral under recurrent expenditure component of the budget , Contingency recurrent has the highest vote of N2.536trilliin , followed by the Ministry of Defence which has sum of N1.308trillion proposed for it.
Others are the Ministry of Police Affairs, N869.120billion , Ministry of Education N857billion , Ministry of Health and Social Welfare N667.577billion , National Social Investment Programme Agency, N200billion etc .
Under the capital expenditure component , the Ministry of Works has the highest projected sum of N1 404trillion , followed by Ministry of Agriculture and food security with projected sum of N1.334 trillion.
Others are Ministry of Health and Social Welfare , N486.456billion, Ministry of Education, N431. 829 billion, Ministry of Finance N353.949billion , Ministry of Power N264.265billion , Aids and Grants funded projects N685 . 632 billion, Contingency (capital ) N200billion, Zonal Intervention Projects N100billion etc
Similarly, the National Assembly has passed the Finance Act targeted at 50 per cent from the funds which accrued to Nigerian banks since the commencement of the new current forex regime in the country.
The National Assembly, however said the implementation would take effect from when the forex regime started during the administration of President Bola Tinubu.
The passage followed the adoption of the report of the National Assembly joint committee on Finance chaired by the duo of Senator Sani Musa and James Faleke.
The Joint Committee observed that the banks enjoyed windfall as a result of exchange rate unification policy of the Federal Government.
The panel noted that the windfall was as a result of Forex allocation to selected Commercial Banks. The policy, the report added, does not permit the use of windfall for dividend payments.
The joint panel therefore recommended that the application of the provision of Section 30 of the Principal Act should take effect from January 1, 2023.
It stated that the levy shall be 70 percent on the realised profits from all exchange transactions of Banks.
The report stated that: “Any bank that fails to pay the windfall profit levy to the FIRS has not executed the deferred payment agreement by 31st December, 2023, shall be liable to pay the windfall levy withheld or not remitted in addition to a fine of 10 percent of the levy withheld or not remitted per annum and interest at the prevailing Central Bank of Nigeria, minimum discount rate.”
