President Bola Tinubu is expected to present the 2024 Appropriation Bill to a joint session of the National Assembly in the third week of November 2023, The PUNCH learnt on Monday.
Senior sources within the Presidency, who confirmed this to our correspondent, said the President will present the document to lawmakers in the week beginning November 20, 2023, to, among other things, maintain the January-December budget implementation cycle.
“It would be three weeks away. The President is expected to be in Berlin for Germany’s Compact-with-Africa initiative for investment.
“It is a continuation of the visit of the German Chancellor to Nigeria last week. And he has invited the President to be there.
“It’s a one-day event holding on Monday, November 20 and he is expected back in Abuja the next day. So, we expect him to present the budget any day from that time,” a source said.
Another source, who confirmed this, said the 2024 appropriation, the largest so far, reflects the administration’s ambitions to finance the budget through a mix of savings from petroleum subsidy, which was scrapped in late May.
“He (President Tinubu) will present it around that same time. This budget is significantly larger than the others. It is ambitious yet realistic and we hope to accommodate it through subsidy savings, tax revenues and new borrowings,” said the source.
President Tinubu, who leaves for Saudi Arabia this Thursday, will be in Germany later this month for the compact event.
The Federal Executive Council had on October 16 projected N26.01tn as expenses for the 2024 fiscal year.
This is as it approved the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework for 2024 – 2026.
The FG affirmed that the administration would maintain the January – December budget implementation cycle, saying the President would soon present the 2024 appropriation bill to the National Assembly to ensure its ratification before December 31, 2023.
“The aggregate expenditure is estimated at N26.01tn for the 2024 budget, which includes statutory transfers of N1.3tn non-debt recurrent expenditure of N10.26tn. Debt service is estimated at N8.25tn, as well as N7.78tn being provided for personnel pension cost,” the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Abubakar Bagudu, explained.