President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has requested the Senate to amend the 2024 Appropriation Act and the 2023 Finance Act by increasing the budget by N6.2 trillion.
Tinubu’s request is contained in a letter addressed to President of Senate, Godswill Akpabio and read at plenary on Wednesday.
The president in the letter, said the move was pursuant to section 58, sub-section two of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as amended.
The letter reads in part, “Pursuant to section 58 (2) of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended, I forward herewith the above named bills for consideration and passage by the senate.
“The appropriation act amendment bill seeks to amend the principal act to provide the sum of N3,200,000,000,000 for Renewed Hope Infrastructure Projects and other critical infrastructure projects to be undertaken across the country and the sum of N3,000,000,000,000 to meet further recurrent expenditure requirements necessary for the prosper operation of the federal government.
“They shall be funded by accruing to the federal government of Nigeria.”
Tinubu added that the proposed amendments to the Finance Act 2023, were required to impose a one-time windfall tax on the foreign exchange gains realised by banks in their 2023 financial statements.
He explained that this was to fund capital infrastructure development, education, healthcare access and public welfare initiatives.
According to the President, all of the projects are essential components of the renewed hope agenda of the administration.
“Furthermore, the proposed amendments to the Finance Acts 2023 are required to a one-time windfall tax on the foreign exchange gains realised by banks in their 2023 financial statements to fund capital infrastructure development, education, and healthcare as well as welfare initiatives all which are components of the Renewed Hope Agenda,” Tinubu said.
According to an analysis of Nairametrics, banks raked in a profit of N3.2 trillion in 2023 mostly arising from forex revaluation gains.
The 2024 Budget
In January 2024, the National Assembly passed the 2024 appropriation bill, raising its size from President Bola Tinubu’s proposed N27.5 trillion to N28.7 trillion.
The budget was increased by N1.2 trillion. In the bill passed, the sum of N1.74 trillion was earmarked for statutory transfers, N8.27 trillion for debt servicing, N8.76 for recurrent expenditure and N9.99 trillion for capital expenditure.
The Senate said that to accommodate further requests from the Executive for additional funding, the Committee on Appropriation made some adjustments to the bill.
Some of the adjustments made include foreign exchange differential, increase of Government-Owned Enterprises’ (GOEs’) revenue, GOE’s personnel reduction, Service Wide vote (wage adjustment) and reduction from Service Wide.
