The House of Representatives has hinged its decision to increase the 2021 budget by over N500 billion on the harsh economic realities in the country.
Spokesman of the House, Hon. Benjamin Kalu gave the explanation on Tuesday.
The House had increased the budget from N13.08 trillion submitted by President Muhammadu Buhari to N13.58 trillion.
According to Kalu, the House earmarked N4.125 trillion for capital expenditure in response to the yearnings of Nigerians.
Recall that a Joint Session of the National Assembly on Monday passed the 2021 Appropriation Bill into Law after an upward review of N588. 027 billion.
Kalu said, “As you know, on the 8th of October, the President laid the budget before the joint session of the House and the Senate and that budget had N13.08 trillion presented before us.
“What we passed was N13.58 trillion. It’s an increase from what the President laid before us and the realities we found on the ground made us push it to what we finally approved today (Monday).
“The House has approved N4.125 trillion on capital expenditure, N5.641 trillion on recurrent expenditure as well as N3.324 trillion is for Debt Service, N5.641 trillion on debt services.
“The House has also recognized that it’s important to have statutory transfers and N496.528 billion has been approved for that. This is to show our commitment to Nigerians that this budget is here to stay. It is also important to know that we benchmarked the budget on $40 per barrel knowing full well that our major source of income revenue is oil and gas.
“As you are aware on Thursday (last week) we were approached by the executive to shape the implementation timeline of the 2020 budget from the end of December to about March of the coming year.
“The reason has been that the impact of the COVID-19 made it difficult for them to actually implement the budget of 2020 the way they ought to and that is the reality on the ground.
“The House was actually impressed that the MDAs were able to raise this complain that if we go by the 31st December of the implementation calendar of the 2020 budget the 75% of the fund allocated for implementation will be coming back to the treasury which is not good for the implementation of things they proposed in the budget.
“The implementation of capital expenditure we have to give an extension of about 90 days to enable them to meet up with their target”.
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