By Adenike Lucas

The Nigerian Senate has passed a budget on Thursday that it hopes “would go a long way and take us out of recession.”

The report on the 2017 Appropriation Bill  that makes up to N7. 44 Trillion was laid before the National Assembly on Monday (May 9).

It was then carefully considered by the Appropriations Committees of the House of Representatives, before it was sent to the Appropriations Committees of the Senate where it also received clearance.

A total of 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).

Lawmakers have allocated N1,663,885,430,499 to service local and foreign debt and N177,460,296,707 was put for sinking fund. The total set aside for debt service is  N1,849,345,727,206.

For the first time, the budget also gives a line by line spending of NASS.

The Senate President who promised to #OpenNASS when he was elected in 2015, said he was proud of the achievement.

“This is also the first time the line by line details of the NASS budget was laid down & made available, I am very proud.”

In a tweeter comment, he thanked “the Appropriation Committee & Sub-Committees for a job well done on this #2017budget process.”

In another tweet, he said it was his hope “that this budget of recovery would go a long way and take us out of recession.”

President Muhammadu Buhari sent the budget to the lawmakers since December. However the NASS was unable to pass the bill till today.

Senator Saraki, has made an appeal to the Executive to get the 2018 budget across by end of September latest to meet up with the Dec-January window.