The Senate on Monday approved and passed a budget of ₦13.5888 trillion for 2021; representing an increase of over ₦3 billion from the budget for 2020.
The approved size of the budget for 2021 also showed a mark-up of ₦505 from the proposed estimate submitted by President Muhammadu Buhari to the National Assembly in October.
Senate approved the budget after it considered and passed the report of its Appropriation Committee Chaired by Senator Jubrin Barau.
But in passing the budget; the Senate was guided by the revenue parameters it approved when it considered the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and the Fiscal Strategy Paper; leaving benchmark price of crude oil at $40 per barrel; daily crude oil production at 1.86mbpd.
The Senate pegs exchange rate at N379/US$ and a GDP Growth rate of 3.00%.
A look at the Appropriation Bill showed a breakdown of Capital Expenditure of ₦4.125 trillion with a slightly higher recurrent expenditure of N5.641 trillion.
Statutory Transfer is put at ₦496.5 billion including a budget of ₦33.2 billion for the Senate and ₦51,99 billion.
The Ministry of Defence takes the lion share of N838.559 billion followed by the Ministry of Education with an allocation of ₦545.2 billion and the Ministry of Police Affairs with ₦437.2 billion.
The Ministry of Health is up next with ₦380 billion while the Ministry of Interior earns ₦227 billion.
Speaking, the President of the Senate noted that the Executive is at liberty to forward supplementary budgets as early as January next year to cover security and for the procurement and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines in the country.
