The House of Representatives on Wednesday during plenary, passed the 2020 revised budget. Although the budget was increased from N10.509 trillion which was sent to the house by President Buhari to N10.805 trillion. Which implies an increase of N296 billion.
Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, Muktar Batara, while considering the submitted estimate, said they received request from the Executive to include some omitted projects in the estimate.
According to Muktar the projects include COVID-19 intervention fund of N213.977 billion, Contingency recurrent of N22 billion, contingency capital of N15 billion and Global Alliance for Immunization of N4 billion
When compared to the N10.594 trillion budget, passed by the house in December 2019, the new budget is N211 billion higher.
The Committee on Appropriation had provided N10.801 trillion for the revised budget but, during consideration, N4 billion was added for hazard and other welfare packages for resident doctors.
The appropriation for the National Assembly was retained at N128 billion, which is the same as the original 2020 budget passed in last December 2019. This is against the N115 billion contained in the revised budget sent President Buhari.
N4.938 trillion (45.7%) was allocated to recurrent (non-debt) expenditure while N2.488 trillion (23.03%) is for contribution to the development fund for capital expenditure.
N2.951 trillion (27.31%) was allocated for debt servicing. Out of which domestic debts got N1.873 trillion while foreign debts took N805.470 billion. Sinking Fund to Retire Maturing Loans was allocated N272. 900 billion.
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Statutory transfer got total of N422.775 billion to be distributed as follows: National Assembly sunk- N128 billion, the National Judicial Council, NJC, gulped – N110 billion, Universal Basic Education got – N51.120 billion, Niger-Delta Development Commission, NDDC, N44.200 billion.
Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, got – N36 billion, Basic Health Care Fund got – N25.560 billion, North East Development Commission got N20.944 billion, Public Complaints Commission took – N4.700 billion; National Human Rights Commission, got – N2.250 billion.
The Ministry of Works and Housing tops the capital budget with N265.868 billion allocation, followed by Ministry of Power with N128 billion and Ministry of Defence got N115 billion.
The Ministries of Transportation and Agriculture were allocated N109 billion and N102 billion respectively.
Ministries of Education and Water Resources received N75 billion and respectively N80 billion
Ministry of Health got N51 billion far below its counterparts.
The Presidency got N15 billion for capital projects, while N20 billion was budgeted for special intervention in the universities.
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The house The House also approved President Muhammadu Buhari’s request to borrow $5.513 billion to finance the deficit in the 2020 budget
Recall that Investogist reported on , that FG is seeking approval for new $5.51 billion loan for funding of revised budget deficit. The house has approved the borrowing on Wednesday.
Recent loans by the FG: $288.5 million from African Development Bank (AfDB) to help Nigeria tackle the COVID-19 pandemic and mitigate its impact on people and businesses on 7 June, $3.4 billion from International Monetary Fund (IMF) to aid Nigeria in alleviating the economic impact of Covid-19 on 28 May.
In April, National Assembly approved a loan request of N850 billion for the Federal Government in addition to the $22.79 billion approved by the Senate earlier this year.
According to the data on FMDQ website, Nigeria’s current public debt is N28.74 trillion as at Wednesday, 10 June 2020
The Senate may consider and pass the same budget on Thursday. This was indicated by the Senate President Ahmad Lawan at plenary on Wednesday in Abuja.
“Tomorrow, we can receive and consider the report to ensure that we don’t delay anything as important as that. So, this is the essence of altering the order paper,” Lawan said.
The Senate had on Tuesday deferred the laying of the document over failure by the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, to include a shortfall of N186 billion as part of the N500 billion COVID-19 intervention fund.
Written by;
Ifunanya Ikueze
