TheCable

The house of representatives says 2024 budget was increased by N1.27 trillion after government-owned enterprises (GOEs) pledged to increase their revenue next year.

Abubakar Bichi, chairman of the committee on appropriations, spoke on the floor of the green chamber on Saturday before the passage of the 2024 appropriation bill.

The legislators passed a record N28.7 trillion as the budget for 2024, with the appropriation increasing by N1.27 trillion — from the N27.5 trillion proposed by President Bola Tinubu.

Bichi explained the rationale behind increasing the estimates of the appropriation bill, saying revenue-generating agencies have pledged a substantial revenue increase in 2024 to support the budget.

“We had a meeting with the GOEs, we believe that their submissions are not enough. They have agreed to increase their revenue,” Bichi said.

“That is how we are able to get that 1.2 trillion which we applied to capital.”

Bichi said the budget increase in the appropriation bill is allocated to the capital component rather than recurrent expenditure.

“This is the first time the capital (component) is bigger than recurrent,” he said.

“I believe this budget is brilliant and Nigerians will see a lot of impacts.”

Bichi said a one-day town hall meeting was held and citizens made contributions to the money bill and the national assembly joint committee on appropriations worked closely with the executive on the budget.

He said out of the N28 trillion, N1,742,786,788,150 is allocated for statutory transfers, recurrent expenditure amounts to N8,768,513,380,852, capital expenditure stands at N9,995,143,298,028 and debt service is set at N8,270,960,606,831.

The appropriations committee has been at the centre of demanding agencies to boost their revenue generation.

During budget defence on December 11, 2023, 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 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 trillion.