Buhari Wants NASS Approval For $30billion Loan

President Muhammadu Buhari is asking the National Assembly for approval to

borrow the sum $29.960 billion externally to execute key infrastructure

projects across the country between 2016 and 2018.
In separate letters to Senate President, Bukola Saraki, and Speaker, House

of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, also requested for approval to vire

N180 billion of the N500 billion appropriated for Special Intervention

Programme as in 2016 budget, to enable the government finance other key

projects.
Titled, Request for Virement of Funds Appropriated for Special

Intervention (Recurrent) and Special Intervention (Capital) for the

funding of critical recurrent and capital items and  Request for Approval

of Federal Government 2016 – 2018 External Borrowing (Rolling) Plan,the

two letters were read on the floors of both chambers yesterday.

According to him, “The total cost of the projects and programmes under the

borrowing (rolling) plan is $29.960 billion, made up of proposed projects

and programmes loan of $11.274 billion, Special National Infrastructure

projects $10.686 billion, Euro bonds of $4.5 billion and Federal

Government budget support of $3.5billion.”
The President, who also explained that the loan was very necessary, in

view of the serious infrastructure deficit in the country, said:

“Considering the huge infrastructure deficit currently being experienced

in the country and the enormous financial resources required to fill the

gap, in the face of dwindling resources and the inability of our annual

budgetary provisions to bridge the deficit, it has become necessary to

resort to prudent external borrowing to bridge the financing gap, which

will largely be applied to key infrastructure projects, namely power,

railway and road projects, among others.”
He said the N180 billion virement would be moved from monies already

appropriated for special intervention programmes, both recurrent and

capital, for funding of critical recurrent and capital items.

The President added that the request came up because of shortfalls in

provisions for personnel costs; inadequate provision, ab initio, for some

items like the amnesty programme; continuing requirements to sustain the

war against insurgency; and depreciation of the Naira.

The projects to be financed with the N180.839 billion include the Amnesty

programme, National Youth Serve Corps, NYSC, and the Public Service Wage

Adjustment, PSWA.
President Buhari explained that external borrowing plan would be targeted

at projects which cut across all sectors, with special emphasis on

infrastructure, agriculture, health, education , water supply, among

others. According to the letter which was read at the Senate by the Deputy

President of Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, who presided over the session, the

Amnesty Programme will get a total sum of N35 billion from the transfer.

It added that the total recurrent expenditure requirement to be

transferred was N166,630,886,954, while the capital expenditure

requirement to be transferred was N14,208,367,476″ A breakdown of the

specific areas the N180.9 billion would be transferred to showed that

Public Service Wage Adjustment takes the lion share of N71,800,215,270;

followed by the Amnesty Programme, which took N35billion while the

mobilisation of corps members received N19,792,018,400.

Others are: Foreign Missions which gulped N14,667,230,014; Operation

Lafiya Dole takes N13,933,093,000; Nigerian Air Force takes

N12,708,367,476; Internal Operations of the Armed Forces takes

N5,205,930,270; Margin for Increase in Cost takes N2billion, while

Presidential Initiative for the North East received N1.5billion. Also,

Contingency, salary shortfall for Public Complaints Commission got

N1.2billion each, even as Cadet Feeding of Police Academy, Kano,

Augmentation of Meal subsidy for Unity Colleges received N932,400,000 and

N900,000,000 respectively.
On the need to make more funds available to the amnesty programme, the

President said, “Only N20,000,000,000 (already fully released) was

provided in the 2016 budget for the Niger Delta Amnesty Programme.

“Consequently, the allowances to ex-militants have only been paid up to

May 2016. This is creating a lot of restiveness and compounding the

security challenge in the Niger Delta,” Buhari said.

On NYSC funding, the President said: “The Provision for NYSC in the 2016

budget is inadequate to cater for the number of corpers to be mobilized

this year. In fact, an additional N8.5billion is required to cover the

backlog of 129, 469 corps members who are currently due for call-up but

would otherwise be left out till next year due to funding constraints.”

President who, also explained why the sum of N71.8 billion had to be

transferred from the intervention programme, said:  “Similarly, the

provision for meal subsidy for the Unity Colleges is inadequate for the

number of students in the schools. Also, there was no provision for

feeding of cadets at the Police Academy, Wudil, Kano. These situations are

hampering the operations of the affected agencres. “The provision for

Statutory Transfer to the Public Complaints Commission (PCC) was reduced

to N2,000,000,000 in 2016 from N4,000,000,000 in 2015.

Consequently, the agency is experiencing difficulty in paying salaries of

its personnel as and when due. “Due to the devaluation of the Naira, the

budgetary provisions for the foreign missions are no longer sufficient to

cover all their costs. The provision for Presidential Initiative for the

North East (N12,000,000,000) has a balance of less than N1.5bn, and there

continue to be emerging challenges with the Internally Displaced Persons

(lDPs) in the zone.” The letter reads in part:”In the course of

implementing the 2016 Appropriation Act, several MDAs have presented

issues pertaining to salary shortfalls, the settlement of part of which

has led to the depletion of the Public Service Wage Adjustment (PSWA).

This Vote, which had a provision of N33, 597,400,000, now has a balance of

N2, 758,296,000.
“The Committee on Salary Shortfalls, set up by the Honourable Minister of

Finance, has come up with a figure of N41,875,983,020 as the amount

required to settle salary shortfalls of non-lPPlS MDAs. Similarly, most of

the lPPlS MDAs have already been notified by the Office of the

Accountant-General of the Federation (OAGF) that they would soon be locked

out of the IPPIS Platform as their Personnel Cost budgets would not cover

salaries for the rest of the year.
“The lPPlS Department in the OAGF has forwarded a figure of N20,

058,204,856 as the sum required to cover the shortfall in salaries of

lPPlS MDAs. The Security-related lines in the Service Wide Vote,

specifically Operations internal for the Armed Forces (N13billion) and

Operation Lafiya Dole (N8billion) have all been totally released while the

Nigerian Air Force needs about (N12,708,367,476) to cover the foreign

exchange differentials in the procurement of its critical capabilities.

“The Contingency Vote of N12billion has a balance of only N1,827,570,443.

it is considered necessary to augment this vote in the light of frequently

emerging contingencies.
“Only N20,000,000,000 (already fully released) was provided in the 2016

budget for the Niger Delta Amnesty Progr mme. Consequently, the allowances

to ex-militants have only been paid up to May 2016. This is creating a lot

of restiveness and compounding the security challenge in the Niger Delta.

“The Provision for NYSC in the 2016 budget is inadequate to cater for the

number of corpers to be mobilized this year. In fact, an additional

N8.5billion is required to cover the backlog of 129, 469 corps members who

are currently due for call-up but would otherwise be left out till next

year due to funding constraints. Similarly, the provision for meal subsidy

for the Unity Colleges is inadequate for the number of students in the

schools. “Also, there was no provision for feeding of cadets at the Police

Academy, Wudil, Kano. These situations are hampering the operations of the

affected agencies. The provision for Statutory Transfer to the Public

Complaints Commission (PCC) was reduced to N2,000,000,000 in 2016 from

N4,000,000,000 in 2015.
Consequently, the agency is experiencing difficulty in paying salaries of

its personnel as and when due. “Due to the devaluation of the Naira, the

budgetary provisions for the foreign missions are no longer sufficient to

cover all their costs “The provision for Presidential Initiative for the

North East (N12, 000,000,000) has a balance of less than N1.5bn, and there

continue to be emerging challenges with the Internally Displaced Persons

(lDPs) in the zone”.
The breakdown of the virement proposal shows that N71.8 billion is for

public service wage adjustment, N35billion for Amnesty programme,

N19.8billion for mobilization of remaining
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