The National Assembly have raised the 2017 budget estimate by N143 billion. A harmonised Approptriation Bill will be passed tomorrow.
President Muhammadu Buhari in December presented a N7. 29 trillion estimate for consideration and passage.
The Appropriation committees in the two chambers jointly worked on the budget and concurred on the final figures.
The Chairman of the Senate’s Appropriation Committee, Senator Danjuma Goje, who laid the budget document at plenary, said the two chambers had concluded work on it.
Details of the budget estimate were not made available at the Senate but a snippet of it was revealed at the House.
The total estimate is N7,441,175,486,758.
House Apropiration Committe, Chairman Mustapha Dawaki (APC, Kano) said it proposed N2,174,496,775,867 for contribution to the Development Fund for Capital Expenditure (exclusive of capital expenditure in Statutory Transfers) against N2.24tn presented by President Buhari for Capital expenditure (including capital in Statutory Transfers).
However, there appeared to be a slight adjustment to the Recurrent (Non-Debt) Expenditure with the House allocating N2,990,920,033,435 as against N2.98 trillion proposed by the Executive.
The Committee is also proposing N434,412,950,249 for Statutory Transfers as against N419.02b proposed by the Presidency.
The committee proposed N1,841,345,727,206 for Debt Service as against N1.66 trillion by the Executive; N177,460,296,707 allocated to Sinking Fund for maturing bonds remained unchanged with N177.46b earlier proposed by the Presidency.
Barring any last-minute change, clause-by-clause consideration of the bill and its adoption is expected to take place tomorrow.