2021 Budget Suffers Delay As Senate Postpones Passage Till Monday

The 2021 budget which was scheduled to be passed today by the Senate has been postponed till Monday next week.

Senate President Ahmad Lawan who disclosed this at plenary, said the development followed new items of expenditure transmitted to the National Assembly by the Executive.

He said that the Committee on Finance will work through the weekend to capture the fresh requests from the executive in their 2021 Appropriation Bill report.

He said that the Senate would hold a special session on Monday 21 December, 2020, to consider and pass the 2021 budget.
In recent times, there have been disagreements between the executive and the National Assembly over the passage of the annual Federal Government budget.

As a result of the power tussle between the executive and the legislature, the budget implementation has always commenced very late into the year.

For instance, the 2011 budget was passed on March 25, 2011, while that of 2012 was passed on March 14 of that same year.

For the 2013 budget, it was passed by the lawmakers on December 20, 2012 and signed into law by former President Goodluck Jonathan in February 2013, while the 2014, 2015 and 2016 budgets were also signed in the month of May of each year.

The 2017 budget, which was submitted to the lawmakers in December 2016, was not passed and assented to until June of last year.

The 2018 budget, which was designed to consolidate on the government’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan, was presented to the National Assembly on November 7, 2017.

It was passed by the lawmakers on May 16, 2018; transmitted to President Muhammadu Buhari on May 25 and assented to on June 20.

President Muhammadu Buhari had in October presented the 2021 budget to a joint session of the National Assembly with aggregate expenditure of N13.08trn.

For 2021, the President said the proposed N13.08trn expenditure comprises Capital Expenditure of N3.85trn, Non-debt Recurrent Costs of N5.65trn; Personnel Costs of N3.76trn; Pensions, Gratuities and Retirees’ Benefits of N501.19bn; Overheads of N625.5bn; Debt Service of N3.124trn; Statutory Transfers of N484.49bn; and Sinking Fund of N220bn to retire certain maturing bonds).

The President had said the 2021 Budget deficit inclusive of Government Owned Enterprises and project-tied loans is projected at N5.2trn, adding that this represents 3.64 percent of the budget size.

The aggregate revenue available to fund the 2021 budget is projected at N7.89trn which is 35 per cent higher than the 2020 revised budget of N5.84trn.

To promote fiscal transparency, accountability and comprehensiveness, the budgets of 60 Government Owned Enterprises are integrated in the Federal Government’s 2021 budget proposal.

In aggregate, 31 per cent of projected revenues is to come from oil related sources while 69 per cent is to be earned from non-oil sources.

Overall, the size of the budget has been constrained by relatively low revenues.