Senate, Reps pass N98.5bn supplementary 2024 budget for FCT
From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
The Senate and the House of Representatives have passed a N98.5 billion supplementary budget for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) for the 2024 fiscal year.
The Supplementary Appropriation Bill, which is for capital expenditure, was passed for third reading, after it the report of the House Committee on FCT, led by Muktar Betera, was considered and approved at the Committee on Supply while the Senate passed it for second reading following its presentation by the Deputy leader of the Senate, Lola Ashiru (APC-Kwara).
In the House, Betera had earlier laid the Committee report on the Supplementary Budget, which was referred to it on May 22, before the House.
The Engineering Services, Federal Capital Development Authority ( FCDA) is expected to get N48.5 billion while the Education Secretariat, Public Building and the Department of Transportation are expected to get N18 billion; N16 billion and N16 billion respectively.
According to the report, “all amounts appropriated under this Bill shall be made from the Federal Capital Territory Administration Statutory Revenue Fund only for the purposes specified in the schedule to this Bill. “
It added that “all revenues accruing to the Federal Capital Territory Administration, including the
Statutory Revenue distribution shall be paid into the Federal Capital Territory
Administration’s Statutory Revenue Account; and no monies shall be withdrawn from the Account mentioned in Section 3(1) above
without appropriation by the National Assembly.”
Furthermore, it stated that “where, due to revenue shortfall, amounts appropriated under this Bill cannot be funded, the Minister of Federal Capital Territory shall seek from the National Assembly a waiver not to incur such expenditure.”
The Senate had on June 5 stood down the consideration of the budget for lack of details on the document presented to the lawmakers.
Deputy President of the Barau Jibrin (APC-Kano), urged his colleagues to allow the passage of the bill to second reading, following the presentation of the details of the budget.
Jibrin said that the lawmakers had previously debated on the budget before it was stood down.
Following Barau’s submission, the budget was consequently read for the second time.
President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, thereafter referred the budget to the Committee on FCT for further legislative inputs and to report back in two weeks to plenary.
