FG budget N200 billion for military operation, poverty reduction.

FG budget N200 billion for military operation, poverty reduction.

The federal government has budgeted about N200 billion for the various military operations across the country in the fight against terrorism and other forms of banditry and poverty reduction programme in the 2024 budget.

This is as the House of Representatives will on Monday hold a townhall meeting to give Nigerians opportunity to contribute to the debate on the budget as presented by President Bola Tinubu.

The government has also budgeted about N1 trillion for public service wage adjustment for Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government, including arrears of promotion and salary increase as well as payment of severance benefits and minimum wage related adjustment

Also, the National Assembly and the National Judicial Council had a slight increase in their budget.

While the National Assembly is getting N197,932,625,616, an increase of about N40 billion, the National Judicial Council got N165 billion, an increase of about N40 billion also.

A spreadsheet of the ministerial allocation seen by The Nation revealed that the Ministry of Works got about N521 billion for its capital projects during the year, in addition to another N94 for billion coming from multilateral/bilateral funded projects.

A close study of the document revealed that Police and Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps will get N50 billion and N15 billion respectively for special operations, while N50 billion has been budgeted for the Students Loan expected to take off in January 2024.

Zonal interventions otherwise known as constituency projects is allocated N100 billion in the budget, just as the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) is getting N324.844 billion while the Universal Basic Education Commission, the North East Development Commission and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will get N251.47 billion, N126.93 billion and N40 billion respectively.

Basic Health care provision fund is allocated N125.7 billion, while National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure will also get N127.73 billion.

The government is budgeting about N40 billion to pay debts incurred by MDAs on electricity bill.

However, as at the time of this report, there were still controversy as to whether the details of the budget containing projects and the allocation to the projects has been made available to lawmakers.

While some lawmakers claimed that the details were not available, former House Leader, Hon. Alhassan Ado Doguwa was quoted as saying that the President gave the leadership a flash drive containing the detail breakdown of the budget.

When contacted, the spokesman of the House, Hon. Akin Rotimi told The Nation that “the details have been made available to the chairmen of committees, saying sectoral breakdown has been published.”

He said the townhall meeting being organsied by the House will be thorough, transparent and inclusive.