From Fred Itua Abuja
President Muhammadu Buhari, yesterday, forwarded to the Senate for approval, N819.5 billion supplementary budget for the 2022 fiscal year.
The supplementary budget as explained by the president in a letter read in plenary by Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, is meant for the capital expenditure component of the 2022 budget with attendant increase of deficit to N8.17trillion. It would also be deployed to fix various infrastructure destroyed by flood across states of the country .
This is as the president said the supplementary budget would be financed by additional domestic borrowings. The letter read: “The year 2022 has witnessed the worse flood incident in recent history which has caused massive destruction of farm lands at a point already closed to harvest season. This may compound the situation of food security and nutrition in the country. The flood has also devastated road infrastructure in across the 36 states and the FCT as well as bridges nationwide that are critical for movement of goods and services.
“The water sector was equally affected by the flood and there is a need to complete some ongoing critical projects that have already achieved about 85 per cent completion. The nine critical projects proposed in the sector cuts across water supply, dam projects and irrigation projects nationwide.
“I have approved a supplementary budget of 2022 appropriation of N819.536 billion , all of which are capital expenditure. The supplementary will be financed through additional domestic borrowings which will raise the budget deficit for 2022 to N8.17 .trillion and deficit to GDP ratio to 4.43 per cent.”
Being a proposal meant for a year remaining 10 days to end, the Senate President hurriedly forwarded it to Senate Committees on Appropriation , Finance , Works , Water Resources and Agriculture for expeditious consideration.