This followed the presentation of the report of the Senate Committee on Niger Delta Affairs by the Vice Chairman of the Committee, Senator Amos Kilawangs Bulus at a special plenary on Monday.

The Committee, in its recommendation, noted that the revenue profile of the Commission for the year 2020 comprised of revenue brought forward of N12bn, Federal Government contribution of N63,506,151,945.00, oil companies contributions of and Nigeria Liquified Natural Gas Limited and Others in the sum of NN317,493,848,055.00, Ecological fund of N60bn and other internally realised income of N200m.

Bulus added that after due consideration, the Committee recommended that the expenditure profile of the NDDC for year 2020 should include a personnel cost of N27.389billion, Overhead expenditure of N13,937,244,107.00, internal capital expenditure of N2,793,755,893.00, and development projects at the cost of N409.080billion.

The Committee further recommended that the 2020 budget of the NDDC would elapse on March 31, 2021.

All the recommendations of the Committee were approved by the Senate after due consideration.

The 2020 appropriation before now was billed to lapse on 31st December, 2020 but the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the budget implementation.

In the amended motion presented to the plenary on Wednesday by the Senate leader, Senator Yahaya Abdullahi, he explained that agencies of government were yet to execute any meaningful projects, hence, its extension would afford them full implementation.

The amendment motion was seconded by Senator Adamu Aliero and was subsequently upheld after due consideration.

The budget was passed by the lawmakers during plenary on Thursday, a day after members of the House of Representatives approved the same figure.

A breakdown of the figure shows that the sum of N2,488,789,433,344 is for capital expenditure and recurrent non-debt expenditure has N4,942,269,241,984.

The executive also allocated N422,775,979,362 for statutory transfer, while N2,951,710,000,000 was budgeted for debt service.

Details later…

Lawan insisted that the National Assembly resolve to revert to the January to December budget cycle remained sacrosanct.

He commended the various committees for rounding off their budget defence sessions on schedule and defended such before the Senator Barau Jibrin- led Senate Committee on Appropriations, said:  “All the committees have done their works so well within the defined parameters. “Therefore, we expect the appropriations committee to be galvanised into action.

“They (members of the appropriations committee) should produce the report to be laid here on the 26th November, which is the next two weeks before the Senate.

“I believe this will be the same thing in our sister chamber, the House of Representatives so that we would be able to pass the 2020 appropriation bill on the 28th of November.”

Falana made the assertion in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) at Imota, near Abeokuta on Sunday.

He said the Nigerian Government must urgently seek other means of generating funds to complement the N10.33 trillion 2020 budget recently unveiled by President Muhammadu Buhari.

According to him, the N10.33 trillion budget presented by Buhari was not enough to stimulate the rapid development expected by Nigerians.

“From the budget breakdown, N2.5 trillion has been earmarked to service debt; about 70 per cent of the balance would go for paying salaries and recurrent expenditure while the remaining 30 per cent will hardly be enough for necessary developmental projects.

“The budget is not sufficient and so the government must look at other areas to generate more wealth for the country and embark on a serious drive to recover looted wealth.”

According to him, there may also be need to increase tax but it should not be now that Nigerians are facing economic hardships.

Falana, however, charged the president and other public office holders to cut down their expenditures, travelling and allowances and divert such money to developing the country.

While reacting on the recent increment on value-added tax as ill-timed, Falana also advised the government to desist from adopting any policy that could bring suffering to the masses, adding that the interest levied on cash deposits and withdrawals should be cancelled.

He noted that government could use other means to foster a cashless economy, including placing an embargo on the amount of money to be withdrawn from banks daily, rather than imposing charges.