The National Assembly will be funded with N128 billion in 2021.

This is as the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), admitted that the Federal Government is spending more on recurrent expenditure.

Buhari, while presenting the 2021 Appropriation Bill to a joint session of the National Assembly on Thursday, noted that personnel cost is still the largest component of budget expenditure.

The President blamed this on non-existent personnel (ghost workers) and unauthorised allowances introduced by Ministries, Departments, and Agencies.

He, therefore, ordered heads of the MDAs to get approval before any recruitment.

President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, had said the National Assembly is ready to pass the 2021 Appropriation Bill before the end of 2020.

READ ALSO UPDATED: National Assembly’ll pass 2021 budget before 2020 ends – Lawan

Lawan made this known in his opening remarks before Buhari was called to lay the national budget before the joint session of the National Assembly.

The Senate President recalled how the parliament promised to pass the 2020 budget before the year ended, which was achieved.

“The National Assembly is ready to pass the 2021 budget before the end of the year, by the grace of God,” Lawan said.

Details later…