By Oluseguna Lawrence The Senate on Tuesday passed a supplementary budget of N574 billion for 2015. Out of the amount, the subsidy claims will gulp a whopping N522 billion.
It will be recalled that President Muhammadu Buhari had recently sought approval of the National Assembly for the supplementary budget of N465.3bn.
However, the Senators in their wisdom jerked up the money by N108 billion to accommodate subsidy claims till December 2015.
Apart from subsidy claims, operation Zaman Lafiya in the Northeast would gulp N29.9 billion; Nigerian Army, N17.4 billion; outstanding severance gratuity and allowances of outgone and incoming legislators and their aides, N10.6billion; Nigerian Air Force, N8.1 billion and Victims Support Fund, N5 billion.
Others are Nigerian Army outstanding balance from 2015 second quarter, N4.3 billion; margin for increases in costs/recurrent adjustment, N2 billion; All African Games Qualification for Rio 2016 Olympics Games, N1.5 billion; salary for recruitment into the various cadres of the Nigerian military, N3.1 billion among others.
Presenting the bill, Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Danjuma Goje, gave the breakdown of the subsidy paymets asfollows:
N120.5bn, being arrears of 2014; N292.8bn subsidy claims from January to September 2015; and N108.8bn being subsidy claims for the last quarter of 2015 which was not captured in the appropriation bill sent by Buhari.
According to him, the N5bn Victim Support Fund hitherto contained in the document under the Capital Supplementation had been moved to the Service Wide Vote since it is a Federal Government contribution to a fund managed by a committee which is not a government agency.
Furthermore, he said N10.6bn was approved for the payment of the severance gratuity and allowances of outgone and incoming legislators and legislative aides while N29.9bn was approved for the Armed Forces for the purpose of effectively tackling insurgency under “Operation Zaman Lafiya”
The Chairman also said the N1.5bn request by the National Sports Commission for the All Africa Games Qualifications for RIO 2016 Olympics Games.
In his remarks after the passage of the supplementary budget, Senate President Bukola Saraki, had this to say, “It is clear that the supplementary budget was passed based on the suffering of the masses.
“We are warning relevant ministries and agencies to ensure that the funds are judiciously used. Our relevant committees, especially the petroleum downstream must expose companies and individuals involved in any shoddy practice on the payment”.
