By Umar Muhammad Puma
The House of Representatives yesterday unanimously approved the 2014 budget for 2014 fiscal year by fiat.
The budget, tagged, “Budget of Fiscal Consolidation and Inclusive Growth’’, was based on a benchmark of 77 Dollars per barrel of crude and oil production of 2.39 million barrels per day.
From the sum, N408,687,801,891 is for statutory transfers; N712 billion is for debt service; N2,454,887,566,702 is for recurrent while N1,119,614,407 is for contribution to the development fund for capital expenditure.
Under the Recurrent expenditure component for various ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), Education got the highest sum of N373,532,095; Defence/MOD/Army/Air Force/Navy got N314,347,339,871; Police formation/Commands got N295,561,812,085; Health got N214,946,652,273; Interior got N145,021,228,363; Youth Development got N75,957,608,331; office of the National Security Adviser got N66,625,072,907 while Petroleum Resources got N55,706,174,457.
Under the Service Wide votes and Pensions component, N30 billion is for general election logistics support; N24 billion for contingency; N30,582,553,824 for payment of outstanding death benefit to civil servants (5% of total personnel cost); and N11 billion for Group Life Insurance for all MDAs.
Under the capital expenditure components, Works top the list with N106,321,293,055; Power got N59,814,290,389; office of NSA got N51.1 billion; Education got N50,781,035,231; Health got N49,535,699,601; Niger Delta got N49,403,704,194; Water Resources got N44,206,343,742; Agriculture and Rural Development got N35,551,172,583; Transport got N31,808,108,913 while Defence/MOD/Army/Air Force/Navy got N35.36 billion.
Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) got N268.37 billion; N1 billion for 2011 election violence and civil disturbances (damages done to properties and places of worship);
The debt service and statutory components of the budget showed that the sum of N663.61 billion is for domestic debts; N48.39 billion is for foreign debts; N150 billion is for National Assembly; N73 billion is for National Judicial Council; N70.47 billion is for Universal Basic Education (UBE); N49.030 billion is for Niger Delta Development Commission and additional sum of N12.910 billion for arrears of fourth quarter; N45 billion is for Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC); N6.927 billion is for Public Complaints Commission while N1.35 billion is for National Human Right Commission.
