The House of Representatives yesterday explained why it jacked up the 2019 Budget by N90 billion.
Chairman, House Committee on Appropriation, Mustapha Dawaki (APC, Kano) told reporters after the passage of the bill that the increase was as a result of the ommision of some critical items not captured by the Presidency.
He said a major increase was done on deficit,whereby the fiscal deficit had to be increased to N1.906 trillion with N53 billion.
He said: “This is because there are so many outstanding items not captured in the proposal. For instance, there was a Senate resolution for special intervention of N10 billion in Zamfara due to the crisis that occurred there.
“Also not captured but equally critical was the severance benefits of outgoing legislators and their aides.
“This severance packages always occurred once in four years, in the transition years and this amounted to N24.6 billion.
“N3 billion was also included in the budget for the payment of allowances arrears of legislative aides, it was not also captured initially.
“We also provided additional funds for security agencies across board because we believed that more funds would improve the discharge of their responsibilities.
“All these were captured under Capital Supplementation from Service Wide vote”.
He also confirmed that the parliament did not find it economically expidient to alter benchmarks proposed by the Presidency.
On why the passage of the bill came more than four months after it was presented, the lawmaker said: “Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) should be blamed as they refused to turn up for budget defence and presentation sessions.”
He also noted that several breaks necessitated by festive periods and the general elections also contributed to the delay
Dawaki said the document would be transmitted to President Muhammad Buhari today for assent.
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