Senator Ningi’s allegations of N3.7 trillion budget padding for 2024 budget

 Senator Ningi’s allegations of N3.7 trillion budget padding for 2024 budget shows that a breakdown of N25.4tn was provided for the budgets of the Ministries, Departments and Agencies …while the comprehensive budget breakdown of GOEs, NassNigeria, National Judicial Council,  Public Complaints Commission, INEC, and TETFUND totaling N3.32tn was excluded from the budget that was passed and published.

This does not mean the country operates two separate budgets. There’s only one final 2024 budget known to us. However, the summary budget of the aforementioned agencies was passed by the National Assembly and included in the published approved budget. The practice of omitting the breakdown of certain government MDAs, the National Assembly, and the National Judicial Commission goes against one of the core principles of public budgeting which instructs that all expenditure breakdowns be presented in the same budget document. 

The FG published the proposed budget of GOEs, it is yet to publish the approval of GOEs.