National Assembly Corrects ‘Errors’ In 2025 Budget

The House of Representatives has corrected the errors inherent in the recurrent (non-debt) component of the N54.99trillion 2025 Appropriation Bill passed last week Thursday.

This followed the adoption of a motion on rescission of the Appropriation Bill moved by the chairman of the House Committee on Rules and Business, Hon. Francis Waive (APC, Delta) at plenary on Tuesday.

Moving the motion, Waive highlighted that the 2025 Appropriations Bill had been passed by both the House and the Senate on February 13, 2025.

However, he said during the final cleaning and realignment process of the Bill ahead of its transmission to the Executive for assent, the Joint Committee on Appropriations identified errors in the allocations that required urgent rectification.

The lawmaker said the total budget still stands at N54.99 trillion, including a statutory transfer of N3.64 trillion and debt servicing of N14.32 trillion.

He said following the correction, the Recurrent (Non-Debt) Expenditure was increased from N13.06 trillion to N13.59 trillion, while the Capital Expenditure was reduced from N23.96 trillion to N23.44 trillion.

Following the approval of the motion on rescission, the report of the adjusted budget was presented by the House Leader, Prof Julius Ihonvbere, after which it was committed to the House Committee of Supply and passed accordingly.

Some of the key adjustments included: Ministry of Defence allocation revised from N2.51 trillion to N2.49 trillion; Ministry of Police Affairs adjusted from N1.225 trillion to N1.224 trillion and total Pensions, Gratuity, and Retirement Benefits increased from N950 billion to N1.44 trillion.

Others were Military Pensions and Gratuities adjusted from N252.6 billion to N383.9 billion; National Pension Commission (PenCom) increased from N529.4 billion to N804.7 billion.

LEADERSHIP reports that the same corrections were carried out on the 2025 Appropriations Bill by the Senate.

The Money Bill is expected to be transmitted to President Bola Tinubu any moment from now for his assent and subsequent implementation.