By Babajide Okeowo
In a bid to maintain the desire of the present regime to restore the country’s budget to the January to December cycle, President Muhammadu Buhari will sign the 2021 Appropriation Bill into law today.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, confirmed this recently.
“All things being equal (and note this), the President will sign the 2021 budget into law on Thursday. It is not likely that the plan will change though,” Shehu said.
The National Assembly last Monday passed the 2021 Appropriation Bill, raising the total estimates from the proposed N13.08tn to N13.59tn, an increase of over N500bn.
Recall that the President had on October 8, 2020, laid the money bill before a joint session of the National Assembly.
Both the Senate and the House of Representatives Committees on Appropriations had laid a harmonised report in the respective chambers as the National Assembly held special sessions mainly to pass the national budget ahead of the Christmas and New Year break.
Out of the total sum of N13.59tn for 2021, N496.53bn is for statutory transfers; N3.32tn is for debt service; N5.64tn is for recurrent (non-debt) expenditure; while the sum of N4.13tn is for capital expenditure.
While statutory transfers totalling N496.53bn were approved, it was observed that the N125bn proposed for the National Assembly and its affiliates had been raised by N8.99bn, putting the new total estimates at N133.99bn.
So, barring any last-minute change, the bill is expected to be signed today.
