President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday, 8th November assented to a Supplementary Appropriation bill of N2,176,791,266,033. The two chambers of the National Assembly had considered and passed the Supplementary Appropriation bill on varying days – the House of Representatives on 2nd November and the Senate on 6th November.
The new Supplementary Appropriation Act is broken down as follows:
Statutory Transfers – N18 billion
Recurrent (Non-debt) Expenditure – N992,802,015,985
Contribution to Development Fund for Capital Expenditure – N1,165,989,270,049
A further breakdown of the proposed expenditure is as follows:
- Wage awards for 1.5 million Federal Government employees – N210 billion
- Cash Transfer to vulnerable households – N400 billion
- National Security and Defence – N604 billion
- Maintenance of bridges across Nigeria – N300 billion
- Agricultural input and equipment – N200 billion
- Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi States Governorship Elections – N18 billion
- Take-off for Student Loans – N5.5 billion
- Take-off grants for new Government Ministries – N8 billion
It is not clear if the N5.095 billion proposed for the acquisition of a Presidential yacht was approved or re-allocated to a different budgetary item.
It will be recalled that the main Appropriation Act of 2023 of N21.83 trillion was passed by the 9th National Assembly and assented to by former President Muhammadu Buhari at the beginning of the year. The proposed expenditure of N2.17 trillion is coming as a supplementary budget to the 2023 Appropriation Act. Earlier, in July 2023, President Bola Tinubu had requested an amendment to the 2022 Supplementary Appropriation Act of N819.5 billion assented to by former President Buhari, to re-purpose the sum of N500 billion for the provision of palliatives to citizens, to cushion the adverse effects of petrol subsidy removal.
The Supplementary Appropriation Act has been widely criticised as it was proposed and passed by the National Assembly and assented to by the President when what the President should have been sending to the National Assembly is the Appropriation bill for 2024. The Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) requires that the President submits a budget no later than three months before the expiration of the current budget for the year. With only a few weeks to the end of 2023, the President is yet to submit the 2024 Appropriation bill to the National Assembly, in clear violation of the provisions of the FRA.