The Senate on Thursday, June 11, 2020, passed the sum of N10.810 trillion as a revised 2020 budget.
There was however drama as the Senate had earlier passed the sum of N10.805 trillion before it reversed itself and increased it to N10.810 trillion.
The adjustment of the estimate followed a motion moved by the chairman, senate committee on finance, Solomon Adeola (Lagos West).
Adeola explained that the difference of $3 between the oil benchmark price of $28 recommended and the $25 proposed by the executive which amounted to N5.256 billon, was erroneously omitted from the aggregate expenditure in the Bill by the National Assembly’s Joint Committees on Appropriation while considering the revised budget proposal.
According to him, from the N5.256 billion expected as additional revenue from the increased oil price, N1.746 billion was added to the statutory votes of N44.200 billion proposed votes for the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC.
He added that N816 million from the amount was also added to the N20.944 billion proposed for the North East Development Commission, NEDC.
Others are: N1.709 billion to the N51.120 billion voted for the Universal Basic Education Commission, UBEC, and N897 million added to the N25.560 billion proposed for the Basic Health Care Fund.
President Muhammadu Buhari had in a letter to both chambers of the National Assembly, requested the members to review the 2020 appropriation of N10.509 trillion.
The revised budget figure for the 2020 fiscal year is now N10.810 trillion, representing an increase of N301 billion.
The passage followed the consideration of the report of the Senate Committee on Appropriations on the Appropriation Act (Amendment) Bill, 2020.
Out of the sum of N10,810,800,872,072 to be issued from the Consolidated Revenue Fund, N428,032,186,792 is for Statutory transfers; N2,951,710,000,000 is for Debt Service, N4,942,269,251,934 is for Recurrent (Non-Debt) Expenditure and N2,488,789,433,344 is for contribution to the Development Fund for Capital Expenditure.
The 2020 Appropriation Act (Amendment) Bill is predicated on Oil production of 1.8 million barrels per day and a benchmark oil price of $28 dollar per barrel.
The official exchange rate has also been adjusted upwards to N360/ US$1.
The N301 billion added to the Capital expenditure proposed by the executive increased it from N2.230 trillion to N2.488 trillion.
The recurrent expenditure was increased the N4.928 trillion proposed by the executive to N4.942 trillion.
While Statutory Transfers was increased from N398.505 billion to N428.033 billion. This amounted to the N301 billion added to the proposal.
The proposed 1.9 million barrel per day oil production was reduced to 1.8mbpd in the revised Bill.
However other highlights of the revised budget forwarded to NASS by President Buhari two weeks ago like the N2.951trillion for Debt Servicing and the N500billion intervention fund for COVID-19 were retained.
Earlier in his presentation, the chairman, senate committee on appropriations, Barau Jibrin (Kano North), explained that: “While considering the Bill, the Committee received requests from the executive to include inadvertently omitted/inadequate provisions for projects and programmes in the Bill as follows: COVID-19 fund – N186.370 billion, Contingency Recurrent – N7.5 billion, Contingency Capital – N5 billion and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations, GAVI, – N4.099 billion.
“The total aggregate recommended is higher than the proposed figure because of the accommodation of the request by the executive for additional funding for COVlD-19, to strengthen the capacity of all the States in the federation to tackle the challenges of the Pandemic, contingency and GAVI/immunization and the restoration/upward adjustments of important and people-oriented projects and programmes that were in the 2020 Appropriation Act but were either completely removed or substantially reduced in the Bill.
“It is important to also emphasize the fact that this is a period that the Government needs to utilize every available legal, monitor, and fiscal policies/instruments to stimulate the economy. This is essentially what the recommendation in this report seeks to achieve.”
He added that the committee in analyzing the budget proposals, made the following observations:
“That there were cuts in all items in statutory transfers, an increase in the debt service and general reduction in the overhead component of the budget (excluding the health sector ).
“Others are reductions/zero provision to some projects in the capital component and new provisions on service-wide votes and capital supplementation to cushion the socio-economic disruptions and shock of COVID-19.”
In his remarks, the senate president Ahmad Lawan said having been on the same page with the required revised budget, the various Standing Committees of the Senate should be prepared to carry out effective oversight to ensure that all allocations made were implemented as passed.
Lawan said: “We must ensure accountability in the execution of the just-passed revised 2020 budget in the interest of Nigerians.
“The best way of doing this is to carry out thorough oversight on both the revenue-generating agencies and others executing the budget in one way or the other.”
Source: The Nation
