July 7, 2021

The Senate on Wednesday passed into law a supplementary budget of N895 billion of which N173 billion is for recurrent expenditure and N722 billion will be for contribution to a development fund for capital expenditure for the year ending 31st December, 2021.

This supplementary budget is intended to equip the military in fighting insurgency, covid 19 vaccination, and also funding for the management of HIV.

Its passage comes after a satisfactory report by Senator Jibrin Barau, Senate Committee Chairman on Appropriation, where he explained that the supplementary budget would augment the effort of various government agencies to discharge their responsibilities.

Senator Barau further noted that security agencies will be able to procure arms and equipment as they continue to contain the security threats posed in various regions of the country.

According to the Federal Government, the budget is specifically meant to enhance the capacity of the military and para-military agencies to tackle the various security challenges in the country.

“The total of this expenditure is made up of N83.56 billion for COVID-19 vaccine programme, covering 30 billion vaccines from Johnson and Johnson vaccines and the logistics cost related to the deployment of that vaccine,” the Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, had said on June 9.

“It also contains the sum of N1.69 billion for the Nigerian Comprehensive AIDS programme currently operating in the States and an additional contingency provision of N40 billion under the public service-wide wage adjustments to take care of the needs for allowances to the health and education sectors and other wage-related issues.”

She said the Council also approved an aggregate sum of N770.60 billion to further enhance the capacity of the defence and security agencies to address current and emerging security challenges in our country.