Senate, House of Reps pass 2021 budget of N13.5trn

 

The Senate and House of Representatives in their various special plenaries on Monday passed the 2021 budget totalling N13.5 trillion.

The Senate predicated its passage of the fiscal document on oil benchmark of $40 per barrel, N3.324 trillion for debt servicing, N4.1 trillion for capital expenditure, N5.6 trillion for recurrent, N496 billion for statutory transfer.

It has an increment of N505 billion.

The House approval is based on $40 per barrel of crude oil and official exchange rate of N379 to the United States dollar.

The passage followed the adoption of a report by the House Committee on Appropriation, laid by its Chairman, Rep Aliyu Betara (APC-Borno) at the Committee of Supply.

He said the Bill is to authorise the issue from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation the sum of N13,588,027,886,175 of which N496.5 billion is for statutory transfers.

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He added that N3.3 billion is for debt servicing, while N5.6 trillion is for recurrent non-debt expenditure.

Betara added that N4.1 trillion is for contribution to the Development Fund for capital expenditure for 2021.

President Muhammadu Buhari presented a budget of N13.08 trillion to the joint session of the National Assembly on October 8.

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, said that ninth National Assembly passed the budget in record time to keep to the promise made during its inauguration.

“We will maintain this tempo so that our successors can continue from where we stopped,” he said.

The House adjourned its plenary session to January 26, 2021.