…Says Senate must remain steadfast in stabilizing polity ahead of 2023 Passes N17.12trn budget for 2022

…Approves Buhari’s N276.8bn virement request

By Henry Umoru, Abuja

FOLLOWING the passage of an aggregate expenditure of N17,126,873,917,692  as the budget for the 2022 fiscal year by the Senate and the House of Representatives, President of the Senate, Senator Ahmad Lawan has said that the National Assembly will today transmit the 2022 budget to President Muhammadu Buhari for assent into law.

Recall that the Senate, earlier, yesterday, passed an aggregate expenditure of N17,126,873,917,692, as the budget for the 2022 fiscal year.

The Senate increased the 2022 appropriations from N16,391,023,917,692 to N17,126,873,917,692.

Also, yesterday, the Senate approved President Buhari’s request for the virement of N276,757,232,395 to fund expenditures in the 2021 budget.

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The approval, yesterday, was a sequel to the consideration of a motion entitled: “2021 Appropriation Virement Proposal and sponsored by the Senate Leader, Yahaya Abdullahi (APC, Kebbi North).

Speaking, yesterday, moments before the Senate proceeded on recess, Lawan who noted that the timely assent of the 2022 Appropriations bill into law would ensure the commencement of its implementation by January next year, adding that businesses operating in the country, as well as the economy, stand to be impacted positively by the timely passage of the nation’s budget by the National Assembly.

Lawan said: “For the 2022 Appropriation bill, we are expecting that the bill will be cleaned up between today and tomorrow, and we hope that by tomorrow (today), the bill will be sent to Mr President for his assent.

“[And] we are very optimistic that Mr President will assent to the bill, as he did for 2020 and 2021 so that by January 2022, the implementation of the budget 2022 will commence by the grace of God.

“We have seen the benefits of passing and assenting to the budget in good time, especially when we had to fight COVID-19.

“The consequence of the implementation of the budget in 2021 and 2020 was very clear. For us to come out of the recession that we found ourselves in the previous period, we must have the fortune of passing the budget and getting Mr President to sign-in time.

“So, we believe that the economy of Nigeria, and Nigerian businesses especially, will continue to benefit from the passage of the appropriation bills in time and the assent by Mr President, accordingly.

“We wish to make it clear that our desire is to provide legislation for the peace, order and good government of our country.”

The President of the Senate who noted that the chamber would consider the report of the Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution as soon as it is presented early next year, said, “When we return, we have one major legislation that has not been attended to at all as a chamber, and that is the constitutional amendments.

“Our committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution has been doing its work. But as a chamber, we haven’t finished working on it.

“We are expectant that our committee on the review of the constitution will be presenting the report to this chamber as soon as we resume. The committee has done so much, and the report is almost ready.”

Recall that the Senate passage of the appropriation bill, yesterday, was a sequel to the consideration of a report of the 2022 Appropriations Bill by Senator Jibrin Barau (APC, Kano North) led the Senate Committee on Appropriations Committee.

Presenting the report, Senator Barau, who noted that the revenue projection for the 2022 budget was predicated on the Medium Term Expenditure Framework/Fiscal Strategy Paper approved by the National Assembly, recalled that the National Assembly had approved 1.88mbpd daily oil production and $62 as against $57 proposed by the executive arm of government.

He explained that the increase in oil price benchmark from $57 to $62 was done to reflect the current market value in the international market, adding that the exchange rate was pegged at N410.15/$1, Gross Domestic Product, GDP, Rate at 4.2 and Inflation rate at 13 per cent.

 Barau explained that out of the N17,126,873,917,692 passed, N869,667,187,542 is for statutory transfer; N6,909,849,788,737 is for recurrent expenditure; N5,467,403,959,863 is for capital expenditure; and N3,879,952,981,550 is for debt service.

The committee recommended that additional revenues discovered should be provided to the Works and Housing Ministry for funding of critical projects, Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, for the 2023 general elections, Defence and the National Population Commission for the 2022 population census.

According to the committee, the N98 billion increase in deficit should be approved to take care of some of the additional requests from the executive arm of government.

A breakdown of recurrent expenditure shows that N61,079,757,342 was budgeted for the Presidency in 2022, N996,09 1,292,618 for Defence, N79,243,483,198 for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, N55,796,274,038 for Federal Ministry of Information and Culture,  N257,626,461,524 for Ministry of Interior, N7,919,353,247 for Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, and N4,476,854,068 for the Auditor General for the Federation, among others.

The Senate, after passing the 2022 budget, adjourned the plenary till January 18, 2022, for the Christmas break and New year.

Vanguard News Nigeria