The House of Representatives passed the 2015 budget on Thursday, jacking up the original proposal submitted by the Executive by N134.5bn.The final figure passed by the lawmakers was N4.493tn up from the N4.357tn President Goodluck Jonathan sent to the National Assembly in the last quarter of 2014.
The passage of the financial document came with just 36 days left in the life of the Jonathan administration.
However, the House spokesperson, Mr. Zakari Mohammed, said by passing the budget, the legislators merely performed their constitutional duty, not minding the fact that there would a change of government in less than six weeks.
Mohammed, who spoke soon after the House rose, explained that it was up to the President-elect, Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd), to work with the budget or make some adjustments.
“The budget is a guiding financial document. For us as a House, we are on course. It is left to the incoming government to work with or amend it. Any further comment on this will be hasty,” he added.
However, the N4.49tn considered at the Committee of the Supply and which passed through third reading was N67.43bn higher than the N425.42bn stated in the report laid on Wednesday by the Chairman, Joint Committees on Appropriations and Finance, John Enoh.
The major difference in the amount stated in the Wednesday report and the final amount passed on Thursday affected only the statutory transfers, which were raised from N366.28bn to N375.616bn.
According to the two documents, Niger Delta Development Commission’s allocation was raised from N45.78bn to N46.72bn; Universal Basic Education’s allocation was raised from N67.3bn to N68.38bn; National Assembly’s from N115bn to N120bn; Public Complaint Commission’s from N2bn to N4bn; while the National Human Rights Commission’s allocation was increased from N1.2bn to N1.51bn.
The House retained the sums of N73bn for the National Judicial Council and N62bn for the Independent National Electoral Commission.
Further breakdown of the final amount passed showed that N375.61bn was for statutory transfers; N953.62bn for debt servicing; N2.60bn for recurrent (non-debt) expenditure; while the sum of N642.84bn inclusive of N144.420 billion was for capital expenditure in statutory transfers.
Under the N1.99tn recurrent (non-debt) expenditure, education got the highest allocation of N392.24bn; followed by defence, with N326.69bn; police formations and commands, N303.82bn; while the sum of N236.97bn was for the health sector.
The breakdown showed that the sum of N153bn was approved for the interior ministry; N69.42bn for youth development; N62.2bn for office of the National Security Adviser; N58.3bn for the Petroleum Resources ministry; N48.3bn for the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation; N41.69bn for Foreign Affairs ministry; while N31bn was earmarked for the Agriculture and Rural Development ministry.
From the N63.28bn earmarked for the Presidential Amnesty Programme, the stipends and allowances of 30,000 Niger Delta ex-militants are to gulp N23.62bn; N5.5bn is for operational cost; N34.15bn is for reintegration of transformed ex-militants; while zero allocation is for the third phase of the reinsertion/transition safety allowances for 3,642 ex-militants.
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