By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The 2021 budget of N13.08 trillion presented to a joint session of the National Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari in October has been passed.
The appropriation act was approved on Monday by the Senate, the upper chamber of the parliament and increased by N505 billion to N13.59 trillion.
Business Post reports that the passage of the expenditure for the next fiscal year followed the presentation of a report by the chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriation, Mr Barau Jibrin, today.
According to the report, the capital expenditure of N3.6 trillion proposed by the executive arm of government would not be enough for next year and necessitated the increase to N4.1 trillion.
It was explained that this was to put projects in place that would benefit the citizens of the country and contribute to the quick exit of Nigeria from recession.
The country entered into a recession in the third quarter of 2020 after recording declines in two straight quarters; second and third by 6.1 per cent and 3.6 per cent respectively.
In the 2021 budget passed by the Senate today, it was agreed that the sum of N5.6 trillion should be used for recurrent expenditure, while the fiscal deficit was pegged at N5.2 trillion, with debt service expected to gulp N3.3 trillion.
The red chamber of the National Assembly put the estimate daily oil production at 1.86 million per barrel, while the oil benchmark price was fixed at $40 per barrel, with the exchange rate left at N379/$1 and the gross domestic product (GDP) at 3.00 per cent.
Adedapo Adesanya