President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday at the state house assented to a record N17.13 trillion 2022 appropriation bill into law and also signed the 2021 finance bill into law at an event.
In attendance at the signing ceremony were the President of the Senate, Ahmed Lawan, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, as well as the Minister of Finance, Budget, and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed.
The appropriation bill signing by President Muhammadu Buhari comes barely one week after both chambers of the National Assembly passed the appropriation bill.
The two chambers of the National Assembly raised the budget expenditure by N735.8 billion from the proposed N16.391tn to N17.126 trillion. Also, the oil benchmark price was raised from $57 per barrel proposed by the executive to $62.
The national assembly also pegged oil production output at 1.88 million barrels daily, while exchange rate was fixed at N410.15 to the dollar, the GDP at 4.2 percent and inflation at 13 percent.
Buhari stated that the 2022 Budget, just signed into law, provides for aggregate expenditures of N17.127 trillion, an increase of N735.85 billion over the initial Executive Proposal for a total expenditure of N16.391 trillion.
He stated further that N186.53 billion of the increase however originated from additional critical expenditures that he had approved the minister of finance, budget and National Planning to submit to the National Assembly.
‘‘The Minister will provide the public with the details of the budget as passed by the National Assembly, and signed into law by me,’’ he said.
He disclosed that as the 2023 Budget will be a transition budget, work will commence in earnest to make certain that there is early submission of the 2023-2025 medium-term expenditure framework and fiscal strategy paper as well as the 2023 appropriation bill to the national assembly.
Buhari directed the heads of ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to work with the ministry of finance, budget and national planning, more specifically with the budget office of the federation, to achieve this very important objective.
