Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriation, Hon. Abubakar Kabir Bichi has explained why the National Assembly increased the 2024 budget from N27.50 trillion to N28.78 trillion.
Bichi also said that the increase was necessitated by the promise from Government Owned Enterprises (GOEs) to increase their revenue generation in the 2024 fiscal year.
The House and the Senate passed a harmonised budget of N28.78 trillion on Saturday, December 30, an increase of about N1.27 trillion over the budget presented by the president.
Bichi explained that revenue-generating agencies have pledged a substantial revenue increase in 2024 to support the budget.
He said, “We had a meeting with the GOEs, and we believe that their submissions are not enough. They have agreed to increase their revenue.
“That is how we are able to get that 1.2 trillion that we applied to capital,” Bichi said, adding that the budget increase in the appropriation bill is allocated to the capital component rather than recurrent expenditure.
“I believe this budget is brilliant, and Nigerians will see a lot of impacts. This is the first time the capital component is bigger than recurrent.”
According to him, citizens made contributions to the money bill at a one-day town hall meeting organised by the House, while the National Assembly joint committee on appropriations worked closely with the executive to arrive at the budget.
During budget defence early this month, Bichi told Adewale Adeniyi, the Comptroller-General (CG) of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), to increase the agency’s revenue target for 2024 to N6 trillion from its proposed N5.79 trillion, stressing that the government needs money to finance several projects.
The appropriation committee chairman also urged the Nigerian Upstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) to increase its revenue target to N6 trillion from the proposed N5.6.