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From Adesuwa Tsan, Abuja
Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, has disclosed that the 2025 budget would be transmitted to President Bola Tinubu for immediate assent after correcting some errors in line items under capital and recurrent component as well as the long title.
The National Assembly on Thursday last week passed the N54.9 trillion 2025 Appropriation Bill with N13.064 trillion allocated for recurrent and N23.963 for capital expenditures.
Despite the corrections, the budget size remains N54.9 trillion, while the capital expenditure has been reduced by more than N500 billion and the recurrent expenditure increased by the same amount.
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Adeola Olamilekan (Ogun West), who raised the motion for the corrections, said the recurrent expenditure now stands at N13.588 trillion while the capital expenditure is N23.439 trillion.
He explained that the “inadvertent errors” were discovered in the versions passed by both chambers during the point of “cleaning and re-alignment” by the Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations.
In his remarks following the approval and adoption of the corrections, Akpabio directed the leader of the Senate, Opeyemi Bamidele (Ekiti Central) to move that the Senate adjourns for one hour to adopt the votes and proceedings of the day to enable the Clerk of the National Assembly “transmit the corrected version of the Appropriation Bill to Mr. President for immediate assent.”
In his contribution, the Deputy Senate President, Barau Jibrin (Kano North), said it was good that the errors were discovered before the bill was assented to by the President in which case, an amendment would have been required to correct the errors.
Ministries, departments and agencies affected in the corrections made to recurrent line include the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Police Affairs, total pension, gratuities and retirement payments, Office of the Head of Service (civilian pension), Military Pensions and Gratuities, NHIS (Military retirees), DIA civilian staff pension and gratuities, Department of State Security and Nigeria Intelligence Agency.
Others are Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate, Police Pensions and Gratuities, Customs, Immigration and Prisons Pensions Office, Universities Pension, including arrears, parastatals pension and railway pensions, NELMCO, National Pension Commission.
For capital component, MDAs affected include the Presidency, Federal Ministry of Information and National Orientation, Ministry of Police Affairs, National Security Adviser, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, Federal Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology, Federal Ministry of Transportation, Federal Ministry of Works, Federal Ministry of Water Resources and Sanitation, Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and Federal Ministry of Education.
Others are the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Federal Ministry of Environment and Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation.
