National Assembly passes 2017 budget

The National Assembly has passed the 2017 Appropriations Bill, raising the budget from N7.28 billion earlier proposed by President Muhammadu Buhari in December last year, to N7.44 trillion.

The Appropriations Committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives separately presented their harmonised reports of the budget for consideration and subsequent passage on Thursday.

According to the report, N434.4 billion was appropriated for statutory transfers to the National Judicial Council (N100 billion); Niger Delta Development Commission (N64.02 billion); Universal Basic Education (N95.2 billion); National Assembly (N125 billion); Public Complaints Commission (N4 billion); INEC (N45 billion); and National Human Rights Commission (N1.2 billion).

The seven establishments are to get allocations on first line charge. In practice, the spending details of these offices are not made public.

But the spokesperson for the Senate, Aliyu Abdullahi, told Journalists details of the National Assembly budget are included in the whole national budget, ending eight years of secrecy.


“We have opened our budget,” he said. “Details are in the (whole) budget, that’s what I have come to tell you.”