Kehinde Akintola – Abuja
The House of Representatives on Tuesday extended the implementation of the capital component of the 2022 Appropriation Act and the supplementary budget for the 2022 fiscal year, respectively.
The lawmakers gave the approval for the implementation of the capital component of the 2022 Appropriation Act and Supplementary budget from 31st March 2023 to 30th June 2023, sequel to the adoption of the bill during the Committee of Supply.
The bill was transmitted by the Senate for concurrence.
Recall that the House had in December 2022 passed a bill for an Act to amend the Appropriation Act, 2022 to extend the implementation of the capital aspect from 31 December 2022 to 31 March 2023.
The House also approved the N819.54 billion supplementary budget sent by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Buhari had in a letter to the Speaker, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, solicited approval for the capital expenditure component of the 2022 budget to be financed through new domestic borrowings.
According to him, the additional became necessary due to the devastation caused by floods on farmlands and road infrastructure.
“The year 2022 has witnessed the worst flood incidents in recent history in the country which has caused massive destruction of farmlands at the point already close to the harvest season.
“This may compound the situation of food security and nutrition in this country.
“The flood also devastated the road infrastructure across the 36 states and the FCT and it affected several sections of major roads and bridges nationwide that are critical to the movement of goods and services.
“The water sector was also affected by the flood and there is the need to complete some ongoing critical projects that have achieved about 85 per cent completion.
“The nine critical projects proposed in the water sector cuts across water supply, dam projects and irrigation projects nationwide.
“I have therefore approved the supplementary 2022 Appropriation of N819,000,536,937, all of which are capital expenditures.
“The supplementary would be financed through additional domestic borrowings and this would raise the budget deficit for 2022 to 8.17 trillion and deficit GDP ratio to 4.43 per cent,” Buhari said in the letter.
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