NATIONAL: Buhari signs 2021 appropriation bill into law

*Sustains restoration of Jan-Dec fiscal cycle

PRESIDENT Buhari has signed the 2021 Appropriation Bill into law at a brief ceremony held inside the Presidential Villa Abuja due to the ravaging coronavirus.

The signing has sustained the restoration of  the country’s budget to January to December cycle, a feat that was first achieved with the 2020 budget, which was signed into law on December 17, 2019.

The National Assembly had last Monday passed N13.58trn budget for the next fiscal year.

The National Assembly last Monday passed the 2021 Appropriation Bill, raising the total estimates from the proposed N13.08trn to N13,588,027,886,175, an increase of over N500bn.

The President had on October 8, 2020, laid the money bill before a joint session of the National Assembly.

Both the Senate and the House of Representatives Committees on Appropriations had laid a harmonised report in the respective chambers as the National Assembly held special sessions mainly to pass the national budget ahead of the Christmas and New Year break.

The breakdown of the budget shows that out of the total sum of N13.59tn for 2021, N496.53bn is for statutory transfers; N3.32tn is for debt service; N5.64tn is for recurrent (non-debt) expenditure; while the sum of N4.13trn is for capital expenditure.

While statutory transfers totalling N496.53bn were approved, it was observed that the N125bn proposed for the National Assembly and its affiliates had been raised by N8.99bn, putting the new total estimates at N133.99bn.