President Bola Tinubu will today present the 2024 Appropriation Bill to a joint session of the National Assembly.
\nThis came as the Federal Executive Council on Monday approved the 2024 Appropriation Bill of N27.5trillion.
\nThis is an increase from the N26.01trillion earlier considered by the council.
\nThe President, in a letter of intent that was read at plenary by Senate President Godswill Akpabio, yesterday, signalled his readiness to present the 2024 Appropriation Bill to a joint session of the National Assembly today by 11 a.m.
\nThe Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Abubakar Bagudu, had earlier on Monday, disclosed the readiness of the President to present the budget to the joint Assembly after the close of FEC\u2019s weekly meeting presided over by Tinubu at the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja.
\nWhile disclosing that the Federal Government is projecting N18trillion revenue for the 2024 fiscal year, Bagudu said further details of the appropriation bill would be released when the President presents it to a joint session of the National Assembly today.
\nAccording to the Minister, the Medium Term Expenditure Framework passed by the National Assembly is being reviewed by the Council.
\nBagudu said \u201cEqually, the Federal Executive Council approved the 2024 Appropriation Bill and the presentation of such to the National Assembly by His Excellency, Mr. President.
\n\u201cThe bill has an aggregate expenditure of N27.5trillion which is an increase of over N1.5trillion from the previously estimated, using the old reference prices.\u201d
\nHe added, \u201cThe forecast revenue is now N18.32tn which is higher than the 2023 revenues, including that provided in the two supplementary budgets. Equally and commendably, the deficit is lower than that of 2023. Details of the Renewed Hope Budget will be announced by Mr. President when he makes the presentation to the National Assembly\u201d
\nThe minister also announced some changes made in the MTEF benchmarks by FEC.
\n\u201cThat approved Medium Term Expenditure Framework has the exchange rate of N700 to $1 and equally, the benchmark crude oil price at $73.96 cent. However, in Mr. President\u2019s determination to find more money to fund our priorities, today the Federal Executive Council further revised the Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Policy Framework and two of the important decisions were to use an exchange rate of N750 to $1 and also a benchmark crude oil reference price of $77.96, meaning $4 more than the earlier approval,\u201d he noted.
\nThe minister said the changes \u201cwill significantly increase government revenue that the President intends to use in supporting the ministries, departments and agencies in the execution of the eight priority areas, particularly Health, Education, infrastructure, security and other developmental areas.\u201d
\nAlso briefing, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, said that the Council approved $1bn budget support loan from the African Development Bank.
\nThe AfDB loan will have an interest rate of 4.2 per cent for 25 years with an eight-year moratorium, according to the minister.
\nHe said, \u201cThe Federal Executive Council approved a $1bn concessionary loan for general budget support and to be used to improve forex availability in the country.
\n\u201cThe $1bn loan from AfDB is a budget support fund for ongoing economic reforms. It is to support government programmes in the power sector, social inclusion, and the fiscal policy reforms as a whole sector policy initiative.\u201d
\nIn October, Edun disclosed that the Federal Government secured a $80m loan from the AfDB to finance various projects in critical sectors of the economy.
\nHe noted at the time that the $80m was to help young people in the knowledge economy, technology, and communications.
\nThe Finance ministuer also spoke on the tax initiatives of the Federal Government.
\nEdun said, \u201cThere was a briefing by the Fiscal Policy and Tax Reform Committee, essentially they\u2019ve been working for roughly 90 days, they\u2019ve been working very well and very effectively, such that they are in a position to have even impacted the economy by coming up with initial reforms, as well as signposting the way forward in terms of very important targets.
\n\u201cSo in a nutshell, the policy on VAT removal on diesel is from them, they are looking to help boost fiscal situation of the government by increasing revenue, particularly tax revenue, through digitalisation, additional efficiency and rationalisation of the range of taxes that we have at the moment.
\n\u201cThey are looking to increase the ratio of tax-revenue-to-GDP to 18 per cent which is the average for Africa; so many countries are above that level. It is actually about the double of where we are now and within a matter of a few years, their target is to reach 18 per cent.\u201d
\nThe minister said the Federal Government was contemplating other economic measures in the short-term, adding that the tax reforms council\u2019s report was well received by the President and other council members.
\nEdun also stated that the Federal Executive Council approved a total limit of N2tn to be available for use by the Ministry of Finance to go in and out of the market and essentially to, where possible, bring down the interest rate on the current outstanding.
\nHe said this was \u201cin order to keep working hard and maximising the ability of the government to use the markets and to take advantage of different situations and improve situations.\u201d
\n\u201cSo essentially, it will be refinancing and the view is that there will be an opportunity to save about N50bn or more in debt servicing over time by giving back expensive debt refinancing with cheaper funding,\u201d he concluded.
\nAhead of the budget presentation, Tinubu had three weeks ago forwarded to both chambers of the National Assembly, the 2024 \u2013 2026 MTEF and Fiscal Strategy Paper where the sum of N26.1tn was proposed as the total expenditure profile for the 2024 fiscal year.
\nThe Senate through its committee on Finance after two weeks of interactive sessions with heads of Ministries, Departments and Agencies on revenue and expenditure projections made for them, approved the MTEF.
\nIt specifically approved the N26.1tn proposed as 2024 budget and other parameters as proposed by the President.
\nIt also approved the new borrowings of N7.8tn, pegs benchmark oil price for 2024 at $73.96 and oil production volume per day at 1.78m barrels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Bola Tinubu will today present the 2024 Appropriation Bill to a joint session of the National Assembly. This came as the Federal Executive Council on Monday approved the 2024 Appropriation Bill of N27.5trillion. This is an increase from the N26.01trillion earlier considered by the council. The President, in a letter of intent that was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":318512,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[688],"class_list":["post-325574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-front-pix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=325574"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":325586,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325574\/revisions\/325586"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/318512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=325574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=325574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=325574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}