2017 N7.44trn Budget: Abuja Airport 2nd Runway Gets N10bn Votes

After raising the 2017 Budget by N143 billion, the two chambers of the National Assembly – the Senate and the House of Rep­resentatives – on Thursday passed the Appropriation Bill of N7.441 trillion.
A breakdown of the budget showed that recurrent expendi­ture took N2.086 trillion while the total capital expenditure is N2.177 trillion.
The National Assembly also al­located N1.663 trillion to foreign and domestic debts payment and servicing.

The sectoral allocation revealed that the Ministries of Interior, Works, Education and Defence got the lion’s share from both the capital and recurrent expenditures.
At a session of the National As­sembly when the budget was pre­sented yesterday in Abuja, the Speaker of the Lower House, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, cautioned the lawmakers against any alteration of the figures passed without ap­proval of the House, in order to re­tain the integrity of the document.
The harmonised budget passed by the two chambers is higher than the one President Muhammadu Buhari submitted to the National Assembly by N143 billion.
While Buhari proposed N7.29 trillion in the budget he submitted to the National Assembly on De­cember 14, 2016, the Senate and House of Representatives passed N7.441 trillion, with an increase of N143 billion.
Under Statutory Transfers, the National Assembly commands the highest allocation of N125 billion, while the National Judicial Coun­cil (NJC) got N100 billion. The Independent National Elector­al Commission (INEC) received N45 billion; the Public Complaints Commission (PCC) got N4 biilion while the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) was allocat­ed N1.2 billion.
Under Recurrent (non-debt) Expenditure, the Ministries, De­partments and Agencies (MDAs) will share N2.086 trillion with the Ministry of Interior allocat­ed N472.597 billion; Education N398.686 billion and Defence N330.543 billion.
For Capital Expenditure, NASS assigned N1.710 trillion with the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing receiving the high­est share of N553.713 billion, fol­lowed by the Ministry of Transpor­tation with N241.709 billion and the Ministry of Defence, N139.294 billion.
In an explanatory note attached to the budget, NASS said that the implementation of the Econom­ic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) and Establishment of De­livery Unit at the Presidency was allocated N250 billion; capital sup­plementation, N310 billion; capital in FGN Special Intervention Pro­gramme, N150 billion; total cap­ital expenditure, N2.177 trillion, bringing the aggregate expendi­ture to N7,441,175,486,758.
The lawmakers said that the Bill authorises the issue from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation the total sum of 7.441 trillion.
On why the budget was in­creased by N143 billion, the Chair­man, Senate Committee on Appro­priation, Senator Danjuma Goje, said that the committee allocat­ed N10 billion to the provision of the second runway of the Nnam­di Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja and the rehabilitation and upgrading of the Abeokuta Airport N4 billion. An additional N25 bil­lion for was allocated to the reha­bilitation and maintenance of fed­eral roads, among others.
Goje said that the committee also approved an additional N10 billion to the N65 billion allocat­ed for the Amnesty Programme in the Niger Delta to stem militancy in the region.
He continued: “We have also made adequate provisions for the completion and take-off of the Bar­inda Port under the Nigeria Inland Waterways. We made that provi­sion for the Amnesty Programme to ensure stability and peace in the Niger Delta with the obvious in­crease in oil production.”
Similarly, the Chairman, House Committee on Media and Publici­ty, Hon. Abdukrazak Namdas, said that the House conducted a public hearing where Nigerians saw how transparent the process was.
He said: “We stood by our word by releasing details of our own budget. For the first time, we have released details of our budget. It is now left for the public to see that the National Assembly is trying its best.”
The Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu noted that in the course of the consideration of the budget, there were several consul­tations with the Executive arm of government, especially the criti­cal MDAs.
He said: “I believe that with those considerations that had tak­en place, the Executive will, within a short period, find it necessary to sign the budget so that implemen­tation will start in essence.”
“We have moved from the budg­et cycle of January to December; now we are doing May to May. It is important that we call on the Ex­ecutive to present the budget for 2018 early enough to enable us re­sume the budget cycle of January to December”.
The Senate Minority Leader, Senator Godswill Akpabio, said: “The idea of expending over 78 percent of the national revenue on the recurrent expenses cannot put something on the ground. If we do not do our best to unbundle the Federal Government and close the loopholes and leakages in the sys­tem and then release more money for capital projects, then Nigerians will continue to hope that one day they will have good roads, good rail networks and that will be a mirage.”
In his remark, the Senate Presi­dent, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki, said beside the public hearings on the 2017 Budget, the engagements with the civil society organizations played a part in making the budget a different and a remarkable one.
He added that laying the budg­et along with its details was anoth­er landmark achieved by the two chambers of the National Assem­bly.