The Senate has today Wednesday approved the nation’s budget for the year 2022 financial year but increased the sum by N700 billion. This is coming as the green chamber just passed the same budget yesterday. Accordingly, the budget was pushed from N16.4 trillion as proposed by the executive, President Muhammadu Buhari during October, 7th to now N17.12 trillion indicating a difference of N700 billion from the proposed one. More so, the red chamber increased the oil bench march from $57 to $62 to reflect the current market price in the international market.
Nigeria oil production in the budget was pegged at 1.86miilion barrels per day. The lawmakers approved the budget after receiving a report and recommendations from the committee on appropriation which was chaired by, Barau Jibrin (APC Kano). Contain in the recommendation, the lawmaker approved n869.6 billion as statutory transfers (a category the lawmaker’s budget falls into).
Meanwhile, he recommended a deficit to have increased by N98 billion, saying it was done to accommodate some request of national importance that was not captured and could not be covered by the revenue increase.
According to the report obtained by Vigil360, the breakdown was as follows;
Statutory transfer – N869,667,187,542
Debt service – N3,879,952,981,550
Recurrent (non-debt) expenditure – N6,909,849,788,737
Capital expenditure – N5,467,403,959,863
According to the lawmaker, his committee observed the need for stimulation of the economy through increased capital expenditure, ”which will make for infrastructural development, in order to meet the yearnings of the people”.
He added, “There was an increase in revenue to Government-Owned Enterprises (GOEs) and independent revenue of the MDAs by N400 billion as a result of the independent report received from the investigation carried out on all government agencies by the Fiscal
Responsibility Commission (FRC) and the various committees of the National Assembly, in their oversight roles.
“We recommend that the additional revenue increase be allocated to the agencies that came forward with an additional financial report which was not provided for in the budget.
Hon Jibrin explained, “These agencies include Works and Housing, INEC (for 2023 General Elections), Defence, National Population Commission (NPC) – for 2022 Population Census, Agriculture and Rural Development, National Security Adviser (NSA), National Assembly (Constituency Outreach) Education, Humanitarian, Water Resources…given that the requests will take care of critical infrastructural deficit for purposes of nation’s development improvement and acceleration.”
Subsequently, the lawmakers dissolved into the committee of supply where the budget was finally approved.
The Senate president, Ahmed Lawan, applauded his colleague for a well-done job especially from restoring the budget cycle to January-December and bills like the PIB and Electoral Amendment.
Lawan said, “We passed the electoral bill but we know there are some reservations, so we will look at it with the House of Representatives. I am sure that this Senate and the National Assembly have done a lot in legislative intervention.
He said, “I want to commend Nigerians, we take your advice. This National Assembly is for all Nigerians,”
