The Federal Government has told the Senate that it is considering returning to the National Assembly the N27.5 trillion 2024 Appropriation Bill to increase its size if revenue increases.
Speaking on Sunday, in Abuja, when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Finance, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of Economy, Wale Edun, told the committee led by Senator Sani Musa (APC, Niger East) that because of the tremendous improvement in the economy and if the revenue increases, the federal government would have no other option than to return to the National Assembly to appropriate the additional revenue.
The Minister said, “The revenue performance was encouraging, and it is expected to continue. There is a fiscal policy and tax reform committee that is already at work. It is meant to provide fundamental change together with digitalization and greater efficiency in collection because it is revenue-to-debt that can allow us to increase this budget.
“If we have a solid revenue performance, we will come back, and I’m sure Mr President will authorize the process to return to the National Assembly to appropriate extra revenue. That is a situation we are all looking forward to.”
Recall that President Tinubu earlier presented before the National Assembly a total aggregate expenditure of N27.5 trillion in the 2024 Appropriation Bill, just as he had announced his administration’s resolve to adopt the “revised 2024-2026 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP)” as the parameters for the 2024 budget, just as he also announced the administration’s plan to grow the economy by a minimum of 3.76 per cent, above the forecasted world average.
