At last, NASS passes N3.1tr 2009 budget

The National Assembly on Wednesday passed the sum of N3,101,813,750,626 as the 2009 budget. It is made up of N168,620,847,114 for statutory transfer, N283,649,892,795 for debt service and N1,627,287,216,097 for Recurrent (Non-Debt) Expenditure while the balance of N1,022,255,794,620 is for contribution to the Development Fund for Capital Expenditure. The Senate last December passed the figure of N3,048,894,135,204 as the 2009 budget with a capital expenditure vote of N890,136,392,767.00 and a Recurrent Expenditure vote of N1,709,388,028,945. It also pegged the amount for Statutory Transfers at N165,719,910,696 while it passed N283,649,892,795 for Debt Servicing. But the House of Representatives, in January, pegged the 2009 budgetary figure at N3,087,046,287,092 made up of N1,019,742,361,943 capital expenditure vote, N1,617,934,121,659 recurrent expenditure. The House of Representatives also pegged the amount for Statutory Transfers at N165,719,910,696 while it passed the sum of N283,649,892,795. Presenting the report of the Joint Finance Committee, the Chairman of the Committee, Senator Iyiola Omisore, who is also the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriation said that the Joint Committee, in considering the differences that arose between the two Houses of the National Assembly in the budget processing exercise, "reviewed the statutory transfers upwards in line with the increased spending since the allocations to the Universal Basic Education and NDDC are based on percentage of total spending". Details of the harmonized budget passed showed that the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) got the sum of N29,503,373,617 in addition to another sum of N21,814,196,492 as arrears of its 2008 share of excess crude. The National Judicial Council got the sum of N78,000,000,000. The Budget also allocated the sum of N227,809, 018,411 for the servicing of domestic debts, while the sum of N55,840,874,384 was allocated for the servicing of foreign debts. Another striking feature of the budget was that the Ministry of Works, Housing and Urban Development got the highest capital expenditure vote of N208,616,140,016 while the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources got N138,928,699,319. The Power sector got a capital vote of N94,624,210,011 and the Federal Capital Territory Administration got N66,650,000,000