Sanni Onogu, Tony Akowe and Victor Oluwasegun, Abuja
THE National Assembly on Monday passed N13,588,027,886,175 budget estimates for 2021 fiscal year.
The amount is N506 billion higher than the N13,082,420,568,233 presented by President Muhammadu Buhari for consideration on October 8.
While the House of Representatives increased the estimates by N500b, the Senate raised it to N506 billion.
Both chambers passed the Appropriation Bill during their separate sessions.
The Senate passed the bill following the presentation of the report of its Committee on Finance, chaired by Senator Jibrin Barau.
The upper chamber approved N496,528,471,273 as statutory transfer; N5,641,970,060,680 for recurrent expenditure; N4,125,149,354,222, Capital Expenditure and debt servicing, put N3,324,380,000,000.
It put Gross Domestic Product at three per cent; oil benchmark at $40 per barrel and exchange rate of N379 to the $1, crude oil production is put at 1.86mbpd.
Barau said the increase in the estimates followed a request by the Executive to upscale the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) spending of N365 billion and the discovery of under projection of total revenue by N100 billion.
He said the committee, while processing the Appropriation Bill, noted ”the impact of COVID-19 pandemic, adding that “it has negatively affected businesses, individuals and government, especially the revenue accruals to the government.”
Barau said there is a remarkable increase in Nigeria’s oil price, which is hovering between $47 and $50 per barrel in the international market, stressing this is above the benchmark price of $40 per barrel approved by the National Assembly.
He also praised the increase on the discovery of under projection of the total revenue to the tune of N100 billion, adding that there was need to enhance the structure of the budget to allow for the reflation of the economy to accelerate the process of taking the economy out of recession.
In the House of Representatives, the lawmakers empowered the Accountant-General of the Federation (AGF) to maintain a separate record for the documentation of revenue accruing to the Consolidated Revenue Fund from excess the oil price benchmark adopted in the 2021 budget. The Lower House said “no funds shall be paid out of the monies arising from the record specified in Section 5 (1) except by an Act/approval of the National Assembly.”
The lawmakers also specified excess revenue as revenues accruing from sales of government crude in excess of the approved benchmark price per barrel, the Petroleum Profit Tax and Royalty on Oil and Gas.
They also said that before such money can be spent, the AGF must forward to the National Assembly full details of funds released to government agencies. .
In view of delays by agencies of government in getting approval for their capital project, the lawmakers said “the department of government charged with the responsibility of certifying that due processes has been complied with in the processing of implementation of projects shall ensure that all processes of approval are completed within the specified period as provided for in the Public Procurement Act.”
Both chambers also agreed that “all accounting officers of ministries, parastatals and departments of government who control heads of expenditures shall upon the coming into effect of this bill, furnish the National Assembly on quarterly basis with detailed information on the Internally Generated Revenue of the agency in any form and all foreign and domestic assistance received from any agency, person or organisation in any form.”
The appropriation law as passed by the House also mandates the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Nigerian Financial Intelligent Unit (NFIU) “to charge and defray cost from all monies standing in credit to the units as revenues or penalties or sanctions at 10 per cent for technical setup and operational cost at the units in this financial year.”
Senate President Ahmad Lawan the National Assembly would not accede to another request from the Executive to extend the capital implementation of the 2020 budget. He said the National Assembly’s approval of extension of the implementation of the capital component of the 2020 budget last week, should be fully utilised by MDAs.
He said the extension of capital implementation of the 2020 budget * till March 31, 2021; alongside the implementation of the 2021 budget as from January 2021, would guarantee sufficient injection of funds into nation’s economy.
Lawan said: “For Nigerians, this budget that has been passed in the National Assembly today, is to ensure that the economy is supported fully through public expenditure, because the economy of our country depends largely on public expenditure. The budget extension period for implementation of the 2020 budget, which we did last year, is to ensure that the funds that are available for 2020 are not lost.
So, there will be two budgets running; funds * from 1st January, 2021, up to * 31st March, 2021; and then the implementation of the 2021 budget itself to start from January. That is absolute fight against the recession we are suffering from. With a projected three percent growth in our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the 2021 budget, we believe that the recession which Nigeria is in will be over before the end of the first quarter.
“I want to urge the Executive to ensure that they implement the 2020 budget that will last up * till 31st March, 2021.
“There will be no extension * after 31st March. Everyone must be on their toes in the MDAs to ensure they implement the budget 2020.
For 2021, we have to do everything and anything possible to ensure that we implement the budget like we tried to do in 2020.
“I believe that the economy of Nigerians will receive the right kind of boost from the implementation of the two budgets,” Lawan said.
Also, Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila said the passage of the budget by the House was in line with the commitment of its members to return the country to the January to December budget circle.
He said: “Over the last two months, we have been occupied primarily with our efforts to complete our work on the 2021 Appropriation Bill in time to ensure the budget becomes law before the end of this year. We have worked with the Federal Government’s ministries, departments, and agencies to set priorities.
We reached out to stakeholders and citizen groups. We liaised with constituents to understand their expectations and reflect those expectations in our consideration of the Appropriation Bill.
