President Muhammadu Buhari is seeking the approval of the National Assembly for N819.54bn supplementary budget bringing the nation’s domestic debt to N22.57tn.
According to The Nigeria Standard, Buhari is seeking the approval of the supplementary budget, which it planned to finance through domestic borrowing.
It was reported that the supplementary budget for the 2022 fiscal year is intended to fix various infrastructure destroyed by floods across the various states in the country a few months.
The extra budget, as stated by the President in a letter that was read aloud by the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, at plenary, is intended for the 2022 budget’s capital spending component, resulting in a rise in the deficit to N8.17 trillion.
The letter read, “The year 2022 has witnessed the worse flood incident in recent history which has caused massive destruction of farmlands 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 across the 36 states and the FCT (Federal Capital Territory) as well as bridges nationwide that are critical for the 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 percentage completion. The nine critical projects proposed in the sector cut across water supply, dam projects, and irrigation projects nationwide.
“I have approved a supplementary budget of 2022 appropriation of N819.536bn, all of which are capital expenditures. The supplementary will be financed through additional domestic borrowings which will raise the budget deficit for 2022 to N8.17tn and deficit to GDP ratio to 4.43 per cent.”
The Senate President hastily sent the proposal to the Senate Committees on Appropriations, Finance, Works, Water Resources, and Agriculture for quick consideration as it was submitted just 10 days before the new year.
The initial plan of the Federal Government was to borrow N5.01 trillion (with domestic debt estimated at N2.51 trillion) to cover a portion of the N6.26 trillion budget shortfall.
The Federal Government’s domestic borrowing is anticipated to reach N3.33 trillion for 2022 with the recently projected N819.54 billion domestic debt.
