By Chibuike Nwabuko
Abuja (Sundiata Post) – Senate on Monday passed the N13.082trillion 2021 budget even as the red chamber uncovered a need for a supplementary budget to be forwarded to it by the Executive early next year.
Recall that the 21-member committee report which was debated before the passage of the budget indicated a “discovery of under projection of the total revenue to the tune of N100 billion.”
The report showed that there was a remarkable increase in Nigeria’s oil price which hovers between $47 and $50 per barrel in the international market, whereas the budget was hinged on the $40 oil benchmark.
The report revealed that there were disruptions in the implementation of the 2020 budget, occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic and that the supplementary budget would mitigate and help in reflating the economy.
“The need to enhance the structure of the budget to allow for the reflation of the economy to accelerate the process of taking out the economy from its current state of recession.”
The report also extrapolated the delay in passing the budget due to the late receipt of spending requests for the Social Investment Programme of the Federal Government.
The report added that the delay was caused by the volume of work the sub-committees had to contend with during the budget defence by various MDAs and the subsequent analysis and reconciliation of their reports with that of their counterparts in the House of Representatives.
‘There was also the late receipt of a spending request for the upscaling of the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) from the Executive amounting to N365 billion.
Sundiata Post recalls that the senate last week extend the capital Implementation of the 2020 budget to first quarter of 2021.
