FG to use ‘special reserve’ monies to fund N895 billion supplementary budget

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FG to use ‘special reserve’ monies to fund N895 billion supplementary budget

The federal government says it will withdraw monies from “special reserve lobby accounts” to part-fund its N895 billion supplementary budget approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC).

Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, disclosed this in Abuja on Wednesday.

Ms Ahmed said the next step would be to present a bill to the National Assembly for approval, in line with constitutional provisions.

“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,” said the finance minister.

Ms Ahmed added that the approval would provide funds for Nigeria to meet its commitment under the Nigerian Comprehensive AIDS programme.

“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,” the minister stated.

She further pointed out that 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.”

Ms Ahmed added, “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.”

The minister also stated that the council approved a drawdown on some existing World Bank loans totalling 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,” said the finance minister.

She added, ”We have also been given approval to withdraw N135 billion from 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.”