Nigeria: Senate to Pass 2022 Amended Budget Next Week

The Senate is set to pass the 2022 amended budget next week as a bill seeking to amend the 2022 Appropriation Act scaled second reading yesterday.

The bill seeks to amend the 2022 budget by making provision in the sum of N106,161,499,052 for Capital Expenditure and N43,870,592,044 for Recurrent Expenditure without increasing budget deficit.

The bill was sponsored by the senate leader, Yahaya Abdullahi (Kebbi North) but the Appropriation Committee was given one week to report back to the chamber in plenary for possible passage.

President Muhammadu Buhari, in a letter to the National Assembly dated 10th of February, 2022, underscored the need to remove all capital projects that were replicated in the 2022 Appropriation Act.

He disclosed that 139 out of the 254 projects in the budget totaling N13.24 billion had been identified for deletion.

The president also requested that an additional provision for N2.557 trillion be appropriated by the National Assembly to fund the petrol subsidy in the 2022 Budget Framework which was revised to provide fully for PMS subsidy.

Buhari requested the National Assembly to reinstate four capital projects totaling N1.4 billion in the Executive proposal for the Federal Ministry of Water Resources; and N22.0 billion cut from the provision for the Sinking Fund to retire mature loans needed to meet government’s obligations under already Issued Bonds.

The Senate president, Ahmad Lawan, after the bill scaled second reading, referred the same to the Committee on Appropriation for further work.

Meanwhile, two bills seeking to establish the Federal College of Education Afon, Kwara State; and Alvan Ikoku Federal University of Education have also passed second reading.