President Muhammadu Buhari has written to the Senate asking for approval of a total sum of N819.5billion supplementary budget for the 2022 fiscal year to address various infrastructure that were destroyed by flood across the various states of the country. The letter of President Buhari’s supplementary budget proposal was read yesterday by the President of the Senate, Senator Ahmad Lawan, just as it was explained that the money is meant for the capital expenditure component of the 2022 budget with attendant increase of deficit to N8.17trillion. With the urgency of the matter, the President of the Senate hurriedly forwarded it to the Senate Committees on Appropriations , Finance, Works , Water Resources and Agriculture for expeditious consideration. The proposal is designed for a year that has ten days to go, even as Lawan said that the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Godwin Emefiele, Ministers of Finance, Budget and National Planning; Water Resources and agriculture must today appear before the Senate Committees to enable them get details about the Supplementary Budget.
President Buhari added that the proposed N819.5billion supplementary budget will be financed by additional domestic borrowings. The letter said “The year 2022 has witnessed the worst 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 percentage 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%.”
