The House of Representatives, on Wednesday, began the second reading of the 2022 Appropriation Bill during which members debated the general principles of the national budget.
The lawmakers took turns to criticise the internal and external borrowings by the Federal Government, the huge budget deficit and failure by the ministries, departments and agencies to generate adequate revenue to finance the budget.
The budget is titled, ‘A Bill for an Act to Authorise the issue from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation, the total sum of N16,391,023,917,692 only, of which N768,276,616,043 only is for Statutory Transfers, N3,901,952,981,550 only is for Debt Service, N6,829,015,483,446 only is for Recurrent (Non-Debt) Expenditure while the sum of N4,891,778,836,654 only is for Contribution to the Development Fund for Capital Expenditure for the year ending 31 December, 2022.’
The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), had on Thursday, laid the money bill before a joint session of the National Assembly.
The budget has a total estimate of N16.39tn, the biggest that the Federal Government would ever have.
Chairman of the House Committee on Judiciary, Onofiok Luke (PDP/Akwa Ibom), in his contribution, stated that his first concern was the sum of N3.9tn proposed for debt servicing, which he said represents almost 25 per cent of the whole budget.
“This is worrisome and raises some issues and concerns. I believe the Federal Government should look at it and tinker with it,” he said.
Luke added, “Another source of concern is that the proposal before us has a deficit of N6.2tn and the government is proposing new borrowings to finance this deficit. What this implies is that, then, the total public debt of Nigeria is expected to rise to N5tn in the 2022 fiscal year. This is worrisome not only for today but generations unborn and the future of Nigeria. Let us do what we can to try to reduce the deficit and how we can reduce borrowing.
“Now to the next point, the issue of borrowing: There is nothing wrong with borrowing, provided that we borrow and put it for production, not for consumption. So, as we begin to look at it, let us take the future generations of Nigeria into consideration while we get to borrow and make sure the borrowings are being put into productive ventures.”
Luke stated that recovered loot and misappropriated funds could be used to reduce the deficits and borrowings. I don’t know whether these loots are still in the stomach of snakes or rats or animals but if we apply these loots, it would be for the better of the country,” he stated.
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