President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has disclosed that a supplementary appropriation bill for 2024 will soon be presented to the National Assembly.
The President disclosed this while addressing a joint session of the National Assembly in the House of Representatives Chambers on Wednesday to commemorate Nigeria’s 25th anniversary of unbroken democratic rule.
Speaking with FairView Media, an Economic Analyst Yusha’u Aliyu noted that
the 2024 budget has not been substantially executed. He said ” my worry with regards to supplementary budget is; “what is it that we’re missing in the actual appropriation that is warranting supplementary submissions when the actual performance is not yet identified”?
“The budget was initially 27trillion and the National Assembly pushed it to 28trn. 80% of that budget was to service our debt, when we continue to borrow, the service cost for our debt will continue to increase. It will be appearing that we are putting much money to development purposes but that much money is going for servicing debts indirectly”
Speaking further he noted that “supplementary budget might be required but it has to do with certain urgent economic need of that economy and it shouldn’t be as early as when the budget is at its own early life, the budget was signed into law and effective January 2024. I don’t know why we don’t adhere to the calendar of the operations of our appropriations. We also need to develop strategies of work sheets where we see the performance of each sector and if there’s need for supplementary, urgent reasons must be advanced why the intervention or why the supplementary for better economic use”.
President Tinubu had on January 1, 2024, assented to the ₦28.7 trillion 2024 Appropriation Bill passed by the Senate.
The two arms of the national assembly passed the 2024 appropriation bill and increased its size from N27.5 trillion proposed by President Tinubu to N28.7 trillion.
The budget size was increased by N1.2 trillion.
Speaking after signing the 2024 appropriation earlier in January, the president said the implementation of the budget would be “efficiently pursued and vigorously monitored”.
“All the institutional mechanisms shall be held to account in ensuring diligent implementation,” he said.
The questions we’re asking are: is the 2024 Appropriation efficiently pursued and vigorously monitored? Are projects completed or nearly completed? Can a progress report be presented that we can compare with realities on ground and see that indeed a supplementary budget is needed?
