Senate to consider N895.8bn supplementary budget tomorrow

Senate President, Dr. Ahmad Lawan, has disclosed the plan of the upper legislative chamber to consider the request of President Muhammadu Buhari’s N895.842 billion Supplementary Appropriations Bill, 2021 today (Wednesday).

In his remarks after the Senate received the report of the Committee on Appropriations on the supplementary budget during plenary, Lawan informed his colleagues to be prepared for the legislative duty

The consideration of the request from the Executive by the Senate is an indication that the supplementary budget would be passed today.

Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Senator Jibrin Barau, had last week pleaded with the upper legislative chamber to allow the joint committees of the Senate and House of Representatives come up with a harmonised report on the supplementary appropriations bill to facilitate its eventual presentation today.

Senator Jibrin in keeping with his request for time extension, finally laid the report on the supplementary Appropriation Bill, 2021, before the Red Chamber during yesterday’s plenary.

President Buhari had about two weeks ago transmitted a Supplementary Appropriation Bill for N895.842,465,917 billion to the National Assembly for consideration and approval.

He explained that the proposed amount would be used to fund the COVID-19 vaccine programme; fund health related expenditures for treatment of additional 50,000 patients under the Nigeria Comprehensive AIDS Program in states; and procure additional equipment captured in this year’s capital expenditure on Defence and Security to tackle prevalent security challenges across the country.