By Enyichukwu Enemanna
President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday signed into law the 2022 Appropriation Bill which stood at N21.83 trillion.
President Buhari said the 2023 Budget is an increase of N1.32 trillion over the initial Executive Proposal.
The president signed the document at Presidential Villa in the presence of Senate President, Ahmed Lawan; Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, and other members of the Federal Executive Council.
The president said he signed the appropriation bill into law to enable implementation to commence without delay.
He directed the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, to liaise with the National Assembly to effect the necessary amendment to the bill.
This development comes six days after the National Assembly passed the bill, which represents an increase of N1.32 trillion from the N20.51 trillion budget proposal of Buhari.
A breakdown of the budget indicates an allocation of N967.5 billion for statutory transfers, N6.6 trillion for debt servicing, N8.3 trillion for recurrent expenditure, and N5.9 trillion for capital expenditure.
The 2023 Appropriation Bill was deferred two weeks ago over what the Senate President described as problems discovered in it.
Some key capital allocations include the N285 billion to the Federal Ministry of Defence, N134.9 billion to the Federal Ministry of Health, N195.5 billion to the Federal Ministry of Power and N153.7 billion to the Federal Ministry of Education.
The House of Representatives had helped resolve the eight-month strike by university lecturers earlier this year by making commitments to improve their welfare packages and make available revitalisation funds to improve the infrastructure and operations of federal universities.
The Tertiary Institutions Revitalisation Fund of N300 billion and salary renegotiation of N170 billion have been captured in the 2023 Appropriation Bill, while N10.2 billion has also been provided for the universities pension, including arrears.
