The Senate has approved and passed a budget of N13.5888 trillion for 2021.
This represents an increase of over N3 billion from the budget for 2020.
The approved size of the budget for 2021 also showed a difference of roughly N505 billion from the proposed estimate submitted by President Muhammadu Buhari to the National Assembly in October.
Senate approved the budget after it considered and passed the report of its Appropriation Committee Chaired by Senator Jubrin Barau.
But in passing the Appropriation Bill; the Senate was guided by the revenue parameters it approved when it considered the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and the Fiscal Strategy Paper; leaving the benchmark price of crude oil at $40 per barrel; daily crude oil production at 1.86mbpd.
The Senate pegs exchange rate at N379/US$ and a GDP Growth rate of 3.00%.
A look at the Appropriation Bill showed a breakdown of Capital Expenditure of N4.125 trillion with a slightly higher recurrent expenditure of N5.641 trillion.
Statutory Transfer is put at N496.5 billion including a budget of N33.2 billion for the Senate and N51,99 billion.
The Ministry of Defence takes the lion’s share of N838.559 billion followed by the Ministry of Education with the allocation of N545.2 billion and the Ministry of Police Affairs with N437.2 billion.
The Ministry of Health is up next with N380 billion while the Ministry of Interior earns N227billion.
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Speaking, the President of the Senate noted that the Executive is at liberty to forward Supplementary budgets as early as January next year to cover security and for the procurement and distribution of Covid-19 vaccines in the country.
( Editor: Omor Bazuaye)
