Senate Calls For Review Of 2024 Budget Amid Naira Depreciation

The 10th Senate under the leadership of Godswill Akpabio, has announced the need to reexamine the 2024 national budget, which currently stands at N28.77 trillion, following the continuous depreciation of the Naira against the US dollar.

This reassessment aims to address the economic implications of the fluctuating exchange rate on the country’s fiscal planning and stability.

The National Assembly had previously passed a harmonized 2024 budget Appropriation Bill totaling N28.77 trillion, which received presidential assent from President Bola Tinubu on January 1.

This figure represented an increase of N1.2 trillion from the initial proposal of N27.5 trillion submitted by the executive arm of the government.

In an attempt to align the budget with economic realities, the Senate adjusted the budget’s exchange rate benchmark to N800 per dollar from the Federal Government’s proposed rate of N750 per dollar.

Proffering reasons for the increment, in December, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriation, Solomon Adeola, explained, “The current price of the dollar at the black market is between N1200 and 1300, and in the Central Bank of Nigeria, it is between N950 and N1000 and we have a budget which was pegged at N750, if you look at the gap, you’d realise that has covered a lot of gaps already.

“Again, we did some external consultations, most especially in the area of oil benchmark and petroleum resources, if we had gone in that line, we’d have pegged it at N850/N900 to a dollar and we agree that we want to be conservative in our approach, so that nobody will think that we want to increase the budget for any ulterior motive, that was why we left it at N490bn out of which N44bn is for statutory transfer, so effectively, the increment is about N446bn that is going into the Federal Government pocket as consolidated revenue.”

Senator Adeola in an interview with Punch said certain actions need to be taken concerning the 2024 budget as the variables upon which the budget was built could no longer stand.

He said, “Yes, it is true that the budget was passed at N800 to a dollar but as we speak, it’s no longer visible as the dollar currently stood at N1450 to a naira.

“And I can tell you that there is a need for us to revisit the budget as the variables upon which the budget is predicated are no longer there. So all we need to do is just take our time and do some internal workings within the landing cost of petroleum product per litre of fuel.

“After this, we can now collaborate with the current budget that we have so that we can give NNPC what the actual figure for this landing cost will be, and then any savings arising from that can be planned upon for a supplementary budget or reallocation of some project within the budget.”