UPDATED: Buhari to sign 2021 budget today

Barring any change of plans, President Muhammadu Buhari will sign the 2021 budget today, presidency sources have told PREMIUM TIMES.

This comes exactly ten days after both chambers of the National Assembly passed the N13.5 trillion budget for 2021 and three days after it was transmitted to Mr Buhari for assent.

With the president’s assent, the bill will become law and the implementation is expected to commence in January for the 2021 fiscal year.

The legislators had approved N13.6 trillion (13,588,027,886,107) against the N13.08 trillion proposed by the president in October.

The lawmakers added N505 billion to the proposed budget.

A breakdown of the approved budget figures shows about N496.5 billion approved for statutory transfers and N3.3 trillion for debt services.

The recurrent expenditure was put at N5.6 trillion with capital expenditure at N4.1 trillion and fiscal deficit at N5.2 trillion (5,196,007,992,292).

The lawmakers had admonished the president to submit a supplementary Appropriation Bill whenever it deems fit – in view of the increasing global oil prices beyond the benchmark of $40.

This, they said, is in order to fund critical areas that will help bring the nation out of its current state of recession.

When the National Assembly passed the bill ten days ago, it made public, some details of its own budget – of which over N6 billion was added to the N128 billion proposed by the executive.

PREMIUM TIMES reported the publicised breakdown of the legislature’s 2021 budget and how the House of Representatives is set to take the bulk of the allocation.

Other beneficiaries include the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS), the National Assembly Service Commission, office of retired clerks and permanent secretaries, among others.

It is, however, not clear if the president, during rhe signing, will query the Legislature for augmenting the budget – as he did with the eight assembly.

When contacted, presidential spokesperson, Garba Shehu, simply said Mr Buhari will sign the budget by 11 a.m. today.