Senate Targets Tuesday for Passing Supplementary Appropriation Bill

Deji Elumoye and Juliet Akoje in Abuja

President of the Senate, Dr. Ahmad Lawan, yesterday unfolded plans by the Senate to pass the 2021 Appropriation Bill on Tuesday.

Lawan spoke at plenary in Abuja after the Senate Leader, Senator Yahaya Abdullahi, had led the debate for the second reading of the N895.84 billion supplementary budget, which President Muhammadu Buhari had sent to the legislature on June 15 for approval.

He, therefore, referred the bill to the Senate Committee on Appropriation, headed by Senator Jibril Barau.

Lawan asked the committee to submit its report on Tuesday.

According to him, the report of the panel will be submitted, considered, and passed the same day.
Buhari, on June 15, had transmitted the 2021 Supplementary Appropriation Bill to the National Assembly for consideration and approval.

The supplementary budget bill was transmitted via a letter dated 15th June 2021, and addressed to Lawan.

Buhari, in the letter which was read last Tuesday stated that the amount captured in the bill was proposed to fund the COVID-19 vaccine programme.

He added that part of the supplementary budget would be used to also fund health-related expenditures for the treatment of additional 50,000 patients under Nigeria Comprehensive AIDS Programme in states; as well as to procure additional equipment captured in this year’s capital expenditure on defence and security to tackle prevalent security challenges across the country.

The president said the supplementary budget would be funded through facilities sourced from the World Bank as well as available new facilities.

According to the president, the supplementary budget will be funded through facilities sourced from the World Bank and available new facilities.

Buhari said the supplementary budget was promoted by the 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 2021 Appropriation Act for the procurement and administration of COVID-19 vaccines.

“However, the Federal Ministry of Health and the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHCDA) has now developed a COVID-19 vaccine programme for the country. Under the vaccine programme, 70% of eligible Nigerians are to be vaccinated between 2021 and 2022.

“In addition, our security and law enforcement agencies urgently need to procure additional equipment and other resources in response to the prevalent security challenges across the country.

“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,” he added.

Part of the funds required will also be used to meet the federal government’s commitment to treat additional 50,000 patients under the Nigeria Comprehensive AIDS Programme in States (NCAPS), due to the reduction in the amount provisioned in 2021 Appropriation Bill 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.

“It is also necessary to provide additional funds for public service wage adjustment to cater for sundry wage-related issues in the health and other sectors, which if not resolved can add to the prevalent sense of instability in the polity,” Buhari stated.

Of the N895,842,465,917 proposed, N45.63 billion is for the COVlD-19 vaccine programme, which will be sourced from existing World Bank loans and other grants totalling US$113.22 million.

Buhari 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 components 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).

“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 emerging 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.”