The Senate has approved the 2025 Appropriation Bill, passing a total budget estimate of ₦54.99 trillion on Thursday.
The budget includes allocations for statutory transfers, recurrent expenditures, capital projects, and debt servicing, with a fiscal deficit of ₦13.08 trillion.
Key breakdowns are as follows: Total Expenditure: ₦54.99 trillion; Statutory Transfers: ₦3.65 trillion; Recurrent (Non-Debt) Expenditure: ₦13.64 trillion; Capital Expenditure: ₦23.96 trillion; Debt Servicing: ₦14.32 trillion; Deficit-to-GDP Ratio: 1.52%.
Tinubu initially proposed a ₦49.7 trillion budget, but increased it to ₦54.2 trillion on February 5 after reporting additional revenue generated by key agencies.
In letters to the Senate and House of Representatives, read by Senate President Godswill Akpabio, Tinubu detailed the sources of the additional revenue: ₦1.4 trillion from the Federal Inland Revenue Service, ₦1.2 trillion from the Nigeria Customs Service, and ₦1.8 trillion from other government agencies.
The House of Representatives had earlier passed the ₦54.99 trillion 2025 Appropriation Bill.
The House of Representatives, on Thursday, passed the ₦54.99 trillion 2025 Appropriation Bill which it said the presidency says the ₦54.99 trillion budget is structured to address key national financial commitments.
Statutory transfers account for ₦3.645 trillion, ensuring funding for constitutionally mandated entities.
A significant portion, ₦14.317 trillion, is allocated to debt servicing, reflecting Nigeria’s ongoing fiscal obligations.
Recurrent expenditure, covering salaries, overheads, and government operations, takes up ₦13.64 trillion, while the highest allocation, ₦23.963 trillion, is earmarked for capital projects under the development fund, aimed at infrastructure growth and economic expansion.
Timely Budget Submission
The Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations, Abubakar Bichi, has urged the executive to ensure timely submission of future budgets to the National Assembly to uphold the January-to-December budget cycle.
While presenting the 2025 Appropriation Bill for consideration, Bichi revealed that the committee had engaged extensively with the Presidential Economic Planning team to scrutinize revenue projections and expenditure plans for the fiscal year.
He acknowledged that the 2025 budget was presented later than its 2024 counterpart, stressing the need for earlier submissions.
He, therefore, called on the executive to transmit subsequent appropriation bills to the legislature no later than three months before the commencement of the financial year to allow ample time for thorough legislative review and approval.
