President Buhari Signs 2021 $34.518bn Budget into Law

Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday signed the country’s 2021 Appropriation Bill of N13.588 trillion ($34.518bn) into law. The signing took place at the President’s office at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

The National Assembly last Monday passed the budget for the next fiscal year with the legislature forming a relationship with the executive that had translated into the desire of both arms of government to restore the country’s budget to January to December cycle.

Buhari had presented the initial 2021 budget proposal of N13.082 trillion ($33,232bn) to a joint sitting of the national assembly on October 8, with the national assembly raising the total sum of the budget by N508 billion ($1,290m).

Both the Senate and the House of Representatives Committees on Appropriations had laid a harmonised report in the respective chambers as the National Assembly held special sessions mainly to pass the national budget ahead of the Christmas and New Year break.

Of the total sum of N13.59 trillion ($34,523bn) for 2021, N496.53 billion ($1,261m) is for statutory transfers; N3.32 trillion ($8,433bn) is for debt service; N5.64 trillion ($14,327bn) is for recurrent (non-debt) expenditure; while the sum of N4.13 trillion ($10,491bn) is for capital expenditure.

By Abel Ejikeme