Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
Hopes by President Muhammadu Buhari to restructure the N22.7 trillion Ways and Means financing into debt instruments were dealt a blow in the first attempt on Wednesday as the Senate stepped down the request.
The upper chamber, however, said it wouldn’t consider it until more documents were presented by the executive for further legislative action.
The red chamber, however, approved that N819 billion be excised from N1 trillion ways and means to fund the 2022 supplementary budget where the Ministry of Agriculture is to get N69 billion; Ministry of Water Resources, N15.5 billion; the Federal Capital Territory, N30 billion; and Ministry of Works and Housing, N704 billion.
At Wednesday’s session, there was a slight ruckus before the request was stepped down.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, Mr Solomon Adeola, brought before the Senate a report of the committee, which worked on the President’s request.
Another lawmaker, Senator Betty Apiafi, raised a point of order, arguing that President Buhari’s request was unconstitutional and what the Senate was purportedly about to do by considering the request was unknown to the law.
The Senate President, Mr Ahmad Lawan, then ruled that she was out of order on the grounds that the report should be presented and read by the committee chairman and that, thereafter, lawmakers could contribute to the debate.
However, the Senate President’s ruling annoyed Mrs Apiafi and some other lawmakers, leading to a tense atmosphere in the chamber.
In response, Senator George Sekibo raised a point of order calling on the Senate President to step down the consideration of the report until lawmakers had more details on what the funds were used for.
The Senate afterwards went into a closed-door session.
Recall that Mr Buhari had written to the Senate, requesting the approval of restructuring of N23.7 trillion Ways and Means advances given to the Federal Government by the Central Bank of Nigeria.
The President, in a letter read by Lawan during a plenary session last Wednesday, explained that Ways and Means were advanced from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to the Federal Government for emergency funding of delayed receipt of fiscal deficit. He said the ways and means balance as of December 19, is N22.7 trillion.
Mr Buhari further stated in the letter that he had approved the securitisation of the ways and means balances along the following terms: Amount – N23.7 trillion, Tenure – 40 years, Moratorium on principal repayment – three years, Pricing interest rate – 9 per cent.
