President Tinubu made the presentation on Wednesday to the joint session of the National Assembly held at the temporary chamber of the House of Representatives.

The budget is christened ‘Budget for the Renewed Hope’.

Last week, the two chambers of the National Assembly passed the 2024-2026 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and the Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) with a total spending of N26 trillion for the 2024 budget fiscal year and a borrowing plan of N7.8 trillion.

While presenting details of the budget, Mr Tinubu said the 2024 appropriation was designed to address economic growth, human capital development, poverty reduction and insecurity.

The president also said the 2024 budget will address issues in the education sector such as establishment of a sustainable model of funding tertiary education and implementation of the Student Loan Scheme scheduled to become operational by January 2024.

He explained that based on the parameters and fiscal assumptions, the recurrent expenditure will gulp N9.92 trillion, capital expenditure is N8.7trn, deficit projected at N9.18trn and debt servicing will gulp N8.25 trillion.

“Accordingly, an aggregate expenditure of 27.5 trillion naira is proposed for the Federal Government in 2024, of which the non-debt recurrent expenditure is 9.92 trillion naira while debt service is projected to be 8.25 trillion naira and capital expenditure is 8.7 trillion naira.

“Nigeria remains committed to meeting its debt obligations. Projected debt service is 45% of the expected total revenue.

Budget deficit is projected at 9.18 trillion naira in 2024 or 3.88 percent of GDP. This is lower than the 13.78 trillion naira deficit recorded in 2023 which represents 6.11 percent of GDP.

“The deficit will be financed by new borrowings totalling 7.83 trillion naira, 298.49 billion naira from Privatization Proceeds and 1.05 trillion Naira drawdown on multilateral and bilateral loans secured for specific development projects.

“Our government remains committed to broad-based and shared economic prosperity. We are reviewing social investment programmes to enhance their implementation and effectiveness. In particular, the National Social Safety Net project will be expanded to provide targeted cash transfers to poor and vulnerable households. In addition, efforts will be made to graduate existing beneficiaries toward productive activities and employment.

“We are currently reviewing our tax and fiscal policies. Our target is to increase the ratio of revenue to GDP from less than 10 percent currently to 18 percent within the term of this Administration. Government will make efforts to further contain financial leakages through effective implementation of key public financial management reforms,” Mr Tinubu said.