By Kolawole Ojebisi
The National Assembly, on Thursday, separately passed the sum of N54.9 trillion as budget for the 2025 fiscal year.
The green chamber passed the money bill after Abubakar Bichi, the chairman of the committee on appropriation, presented his report.
In a similar vein, the appropriation bill was also passed by the senate.
Recall that on December 18, President Bola Tinubu presented N49,740,165,355,396 as the budget for 2025 before the joint sitting of the senate and house of representatives.
Also recall that Tinubu, on February 5, asked the national assembly to raise the budget by N4,530,479,970,637.
But on Thursday, both chambers of the national assembly passed N54,990,165,355,396 as the 2025 budget, increasing it by N719,520,029,363.
A breakdown of the budget shows that of the figure passed, N3.65 trillion is for statutory transfer, debt service is N14.32 trillion, N13.06 trillion is earmarked recurrent (non-debt) expenditure, and contribution to the development fund for capital expenditure is N23.96 trillion.
The green chamber asked the president to submit the budget for the next fiscal year three months before the end of the year.
Last year, both chambers had approved the 2025-2027 medium-term expenditure framework (MTEF) and fiscal strategy paper (FSP) — parameters on which budgets are framed.
The parliament passed the oil benchmark prices of $75, $76.2, and $75.3 for the daily crude oil production of 2.06 million, 2.10 million, and 2.35 million for the 2025-2027 fiscal years respectively.
It maintained the gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate projected at 4.6 percent, 4.4 percent, and 5.5 percent for the three years in the fiscal strategy paper.
The lawmakers also endorsed the projected exchange rate of N1,400/$ — but said it is subject to review in early 2025 according to monetary and fiscal policies.
