Nigerian Senate on Thursday passed the 2020 budget of N10.594 trillion into law. This is against the proposed budget of N10.33 trillion presented to the joint National Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari in October, 2019.
The passage of the budget, however, represents record breaking and a deviation from what was obtained in the 8th National Assembly in which budget were passed almost eight months after it was presented.
Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Barau Jibrin, said the increase of N264 billion into the budget allowed for interventions in critical areas such as national security, road infrastructure mines and steel development, health among others.
According to him, statutory transfer stood at N560.5 billion, Recurrent Expenditure at N4.8 billion, Capital Expenditure at N2.5 billion, Debt Servicing at N2.7 billion, Fiscal Deficit at N2.3 trillion and Deficit to GDP of 1.52 per cent.
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives also on Tuesday passed the 2020 Appropriation bill of N10, 594,362,364,380.
The House increased the capital budget of the federal ministry of Works and Housing from N259.201 billion sent by the President to N315.563 billion, while that of Ministry of Transportation was reduced from N123.069 billion to N121.360.
The House also increased capital budget of the Ministry of Education from N50.946 billion to N84.728 billion, Ministry of Health was also increased by the House from N46.477 to N59.909 billion, while the budget for the Ministry for Water Resources was also increased from N78.378 billion to N91.679 billion.
Similarly, the budget of the National Assembly was increased by N3 billion from N125 billion to N128 billion, while the capital budget for Ministry of Power was reduced from N133.494 billion to N129.082 billion.
