President Muhammadu Buhari has requested for the House of Representatives approval of the sum of N895.843 billion as the supplementary budget for the 2021 fiscal year.
The Speaker, Hon Femi Gbajabiamila, who read the letter on resumption from the two weeks recess, assured that the bill will be passed before they embark on summer break in mid-July.
President Buhari explained that the amount captured was to fund the COVID-19 vaccine programme, health-related expenditures for the treatment of additional 50,000 patients under the Nigeria Comprehensive AIDS Program in States; as well as to procure additional equipment captured in the 2021 capital expenditure on Defence and Security to tackle prevalent security challenges across the country.
According to him, out of the total sum of N83.56 billion required for the COVlD-19 vaccine programme, N45.63 billion will be drawn from existing World Bank loans (which would be restructured) as well as other Grants totalling $113.22 million.
He further said the balance of N37.93 billion required for COVlD-19 vaccines, salaries and other health-related expenditures totalling N41.69 billion and the N48.20 billion recurrent component of defence/security expenditure will be funded by drawing N135 billion from some Special Reserve/Levy Accounts, which will be captured as revenues to the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN).
The letter read in part, “In our collective efforts to contain the COVID-19 Pandemic and address the various security and other challenges facing the country. It has become necessary to prepare the 2021 Supplementary Appropriation Bill considering the urgent need to make provision for procurement and administration of COVlD-19 vaccines.
“The availability of COVlD-19 vaccines and the procurement terms were still uncertain as at the time of finalising the 2021 budget. Hence, there was no provision in the 2021 Appropriation Act for the procurement and administration of COVID-19 vaccines.
“The Ministry of Defence has carefully scrutinised these procurement needs, which the military authorities claim to represent the minimum requirements to secure our country and address current external and internal security challenges. Furthermore, additional funds are required to meet our commitment to treat additional 50,000 patients under the Nigeria Comprehensive AIDS Program in States (NCAPS), as the amount provisioned in the 2021 Appropriation Bill for this purpose was inexplicably cut by the National Assembly.
“In order to address the urgent problem of oxygen availability in the country and avoid the potential loss of lives, provision was made for the procurement and installation of new oxygen plants nationwide and repairs of oxygen plants in FCT hospitals.
“The Supplementary Budget request is for a total sum of N895,842,465,917 only. We propose to fund the balance of N722.40 billion for capital expenditure on defence/security and capital supplementation from new borrowings, in the absence of any supplementary revenue sources. Understandably, needs currently abound in many other sectors.
“However, we have limited the supplementary budget proposal to just these critical and emergency areas of need due to our severe fiscal constraints. All other needs would be deferred to the 2022 budget, which we plan to present in September of this year,” the President stated in the letter.
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CLAIM 1: A Twitter user claims UNICEF said any efforts to block children from accessing pornography might infringe their human rights.Buhari seeks Reps’ approval for N895bn supplementary budget
Buhari seeks Reps’ approval for N895bn supplementary budget
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