FEC Approves N895bn Draft Supplementary 2021 Budget

The Federal Executive Council meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari has approved a draft supplementary budget of N895 billion for the year 2021.

A bill is to be presented to the National Assembly for approval of the supplementary budget, in line with constitutional provisions.

Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed disclosed this while briefing State House Correspondents on the outcome of Wednesday’s meeting.

“Today the Federal Ministry of Finance Budget and National Planning presented to council a proposal to seek approval for the draft Federal Government of Nigeria 2021 supplementary budget. The council deliberated on our proposal and approved as follows.

“Having noted the need for the urgent procurement of vaccines and also the need for funding, to ensure that Nigeria is able to meet its commitment under the Nigerian Comprehensive AIDS programme, as well as the urgent need to specifically enhance the capacity of our military and para military agencies to tackle the various security challenges that we currently have in the country.

“The council on that note approved the 2021 supplementary appropriation bill, in an aggregate expenditure of N895, 842, 462, 917. 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.

“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. This is an incremental provision to the N100 billion already provided for in the 2021 budget.

“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.”

Ahmed said the council also approved the draw down on some existing World Bank loans totalling about N39.58 billion as part of the financing source for the supplementary budget.

“We will be working with the World Bank to restructure some of the existing facilities to realise this N39.58 billion. We have also been given approval to withdraw N135 billion form some special reserve lobby accounts to part fund this supplementary budget but specifically related to COVID-19 vaccine, salaries and other health related expenditure as well as the recurrent component of the defence and security expenditures,” the minister said.

Ahmed said the approval also contained the permission to borrow N722.53 billion for security expenditures, which will be from the domestic international capital market.