The Nigerian Senate and House of Representatives have passed a harmonised 2017 Appropriation Bill with total budget estimates of N7,441,175,486,758.

The National Assembly also released the breakdown of its 2017 Budget of N125 billion, with additional N10 billion to its 2016 Budget of N115 billion.‎

President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki had promised to promote more transparency in the National Assembly upon his election as Senate President, and there have been repeated calls for him to keep that promise by making the budget of the legislative arm of government public.‎

This is the first time in many years that the National Assembly is releasing to the public, details of its spending for a fiscal year.

Senator Dino Melaye commended the National Assembly for making details of its Budget public as captured in the Budget report. He also commended the National Assembly for attaching all the details of the Budget.

Speaking earlier on the Budget, Senate Minority leader, Godswill Akpabio who commended the Senate for doing a thorough job, emphasised on the need to fully implement the Budget.

Going by the details of the Budget, N434.41 billion is for statutory transfers. Debt servicing is to gulp N1.08 trillion; while N177.406 billion is allocated to sinking fund for maturing bonds.

Meanwhile, recurrent expenditure will gulp N2.987 trillion while the sum of N2.177 trillion is for contribution to the development fund for capital expenditure.

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