The Ministry of Works as well as the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security received the highest capital budgetary allocations in the 2024 Appropriation bill passed on Saturday by the National Assembly.

Already, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has signed the N28.777 trillion Appropriation bill to law to maintain the January – December budget cycle.

Breakdown of the budgetary allocations showed that Ministry of Works gets N892.461 billion, followed by Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security with N857.148 billion; Ministry of Health and Social Welfare gets N485.557 billion; Ministry of Finance gets N463.070 billion while Ministry of Education gets N417.579 billion for the year ending 31st December, 2024.

Further breakdown showed that the sum of N339.287 billion is for Ministry of Defence; N309.356 billion is for Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology; N241.252 billion is for Water Resources & Sanitation; N166.113 billion is for Ministry of Industry, Trade & Investment; N165.843 billion is for Housing & Urban Development; N146.888 billion is for Ministry of Power; N121.224 billion is for Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs & Poverty Alleviation; while N91.175 billion is for Ministry of Transportation.

From the N1.052 trillion approved for capital funding from additional revenue from the Multilateral and Bilateral loans, Ministry of Finance gets the highest allocation of N353.950 billion followed by Ministry of Ministry of Power with N264.266 billion; Ministry of Works gets N94.829 billion; Ministry of Education gets N63.202 billion; Ministry of Health & Social Welfare gets N57.393 billion; Ministry of Interior gets N52.500 billion while Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) gets N48.153 billion, respectively.

Recall that the sum of N28.777 trillion approved by the Senate and House of Representatives was N1.2 trillion higher than the N27.504 trillion presented by President Tinubu during the joint session of the National Assembly on the 29th November, 2023.

Further analysis of the 2024 Appropriation budget passed by both Chambers showed that National Assembly adopted $77.96 per barrel as crude oil benchmark prices; 1.78mbpd as crude oil production; 3.88% GDP Growth Rate and N9.18 trillion budget deficit as proposed by the Executive.

The lawmakers however adopted N800/US$1 as Exchange Rate against N750/1US$ proposed by the Executive.

The sum of N1.743 trillion is for Statutory Transfers; N8.271 trillion is for Debt Service; N8.769 trillion is for Recurrent (Non-Debt) Expenditure while N9.995 trillion is for Capital Expenditure for the year ending 31st December, 2024.

The N9.179 trillion fiscal deficit for the year under review, is to be financed through Asset sales/privatisation – N298,486,421,740; Multilateral/Bilateral Project -Tied Loans – N1,051,914,486,314 and Debt Financing – N7,828,529,477,860.

For the total Debt Service of N8.271 trillion approved for the year 2024, the sum of N5.300 trillion is to be incurred through Domestic Debts – including Ways and Means; N2.748 trillion through Foreign Debts while the Sinking Fund for the retirement of maturing Promissory Notes stands at N223.662 billion.