. Promises to sustain the Budget cycle
The Senate, yesterday, passed an aggregate expenditure of N17.127 trillion as budget for the 2022 fiscal year.
This is the same level that was also passed by the House of Representatives on Tuesday, which is about N800 billion more than the initial estimate of N16.39 trillion submitted to the National Assembly by the Executive.
The passage of the Budget followed the consideration of a report by the Senate’s Committee on Appropriation led by Senator Barau Jibrin.
Barau said the revenue projection for the 2022 budget was based on the Medium Term Expenditure Framework/Fiscal Strategy Paper, (MTEF) approved by the National Assembly.
He said the budget was benchmarked on 1.88 million barrels daily oil production at $62/barrel to reflect the current market value in the international market against the $57 proposed by the executive.
The exchange rate was retained at N410.15/ $1, and gross domestic product (GDP) rate at 4.2% and inflation rate at 13%.
Other highlights include N3.88trillion for debt servicing, N6.91 trillion for recurrent expenditure; and N5.47 trillion for capital expenditure.
The Appropriation Committee further recommended additional revenues be provided to the Works and Housing Ministry for funding of critical projects, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), for the 2023 General Elections, Defence and the National Population Commission for the 2022 population census.
It added that the N98 billion increase in deficit should be approved to take care of some of the additional requests from the executive arm of government.
We are rounding the year on a very high note, we passed the PIB and it is now an Act, something that was not passed for over 20 years.
The Senate, after passing the 2022 budget, adjourned plenary till January 18, 2022, for the Christmas holidays.
In his closing remarks, Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, commended all the standing Committees for their diligence, while assuring Nigerians that the National Assembly would strive to sustain the January- December budget cycle.
He said: “We thank Almighty God for helping us achieve that. Let me commend this Senate for standing tall.
“We are rounding the year on a very high note, we passed the PIB and it is now an Act, something that was not passed for over 20 years.
“We passed the Electoral Bill but we know there are some reservations, so we will look at it with the House of Representatives. I am sure that this Senate and the National Assembly have done a lot in legislative intervention.”
