Fred Itua, Abuja

President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, yesterday, said it has so far approved over $28 billion (N10.08 trillion at N360 to a dollar exchange rate) as loans to the Federal Government, to fund budget deficit and other critical infrastructural shortfalls in the country.

He spoke at the end of the day’s legislative business, while marking the Assembly’s one year in office. Although there were no fanfare and other side attractions, Lawan boasted that the Senate has achieved a lot.

“The low revenues from crude exports also means that there is need to explore other sources of funding the Budget, hence the resort to foreign borrowing from bilateral and multilateral sources.

“In order to support and enable the government raise the necessary funds for national development, there were requests for approval to borrow, both from domestic and foreign sources. We have approved foreign loans amounting to $28 billion in the last one year.

“We had ensured proper scrutiny for the desired projects and programmes of government, the conditions of the facilities; before approving such borrowing requests.

“The task ahead of us is to ensure tracking, monitoring and supervision of how the loans are applied. We must ensure that the target projects remain, and that there is value for money also.”

Meanwhile, the Senate yesterday jerked up the revised 2020 budget far above the N10.594 trillion it passed in December, 2019.

The revised budget figure for the 2020 fiscal year is now N10.810 trillion, a development which has made it bigger with about N216 billion.

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The passage of the revised budget followed the consideration of the report of the Senate Committee on Appropriations on the Appropriation Act (Amendment) Bill, 2020.

Accordingly, out of the sum of N10,810,800,872,072 to be issued from the Consolidated Revenue Fund, N428,032,186,792 is for Statutory transfers; N2,951,710,000,000 is for Debt Service; N4,942,269,251,934 is for Recurrent (Non-Debt) Expenditure; and N2,488,789,433,344 is for contribution to the Development Fund for Capital Expenditure.

Based on the fact that the revised budget will be largely financed by a huge external loan, votes for budget service has jumped from N2,725,498,930.00 as contained in the budget passed in December, 2019 to trillion to N2. 95 trillion

Similarly, the budget deficit has risen from N2.28 trillion to N4.17 trillion.

The 2020 Appropriation Act (Amendment) Bill is predicated on an oil production of 1.8 million barrels per day and a benchmark oil price of $28 dollar per barrel.

The official exchange rate has also been adjusted upwards to N360/ US$1.

The revised 2020 budget as passed showed that the Senate abandoned the proposed figure of N10.509 trillion by the President to adopt its own figure of N10.810 trillion.

Based on the development, the Senate added N301 billion to the figure proposed by President Buhari.