By our reporter| The federal government would prepare a supplementary budget to be sent to the National Assembly to cater for COVID-19 vaccines and vaccination.
Minister of finance, budget, and national planning, Zainab Ahmed, who made the disclosure at the maiden edition of State House briefing on Thursday, said the fiscal document would be prepared in March.
She also indicated that the first batch of COVID-19 vaccines will arrive the country next week.
She said, “There will be a supplementary budget, the first one will be in March relating to the COVID-19 pandemic but we will also have a mid-year review like we did last year of the budget.
“If at the time we do the review and there is a need to go back to do any amendment for supplementary budget, at that time, we will take that decision; if not, we will just report the review.”
“We have a provision in the 2021 budget for immunisation. We are already releasing money to the health authorities to start operation in the first batch of vaccines that is going to arrive the country in one week.
“But what we have in the budget is not enough, so we are working with the health authorities to provide a plan that will be taken to the President for approval and to be taken to the National Assembly as a supplementary budget specifically for COVID -19 vaccination.”
On the issue of government borrowing, Ahmed noted that the level of Nigeria’s borrowing is not too high contrary to the general belief, arguing that if the government decided not to borrow and therefore do not build rails and major infrastructure until revenue rises enough, the country would regress.
According to her, borrowing is a decision every government has to take.
“There is a lot of sensitivity in Nigeria about the level of borrowing by the government and it is not misplaced.
“I said earlier that the level of borrowing is not unreasonable, it is not high. The problem we have is that of revenue. So, what we need to do is to increase revenue to be able to enhance our debt to GDP obligation capacity,” she added.
“Our assessment is that we need to borrow to build our major infrastructure.
“We just need to make sure that when we borrow, we are applying the borrowing to specific major infrastructure that will enhance the business environment in this country.
“Again, we all have to work, not just the Federal Government but also state governments, to increase our revenue to enhance our debt service obligations.
“We also have to make sure that when we are choosing the projects, we are choosing carefully the ones that will enhance business environment so that more revenue yields come into the treasuries of the country.”
She put the country’s total borrowing as of December 31, 2020, at 21.6percent of the GDP, and that as of 2019, the debt to GDP ratio was 19.2percent, noting that only two percent was added.
On the fears being expressed from certain quotas on Chinese loans, she said the loans are for capital projects.
The Director-General, Debt Management Office, Ms Patience Oniha, put the country’s external debt as of Thursday “is about $31bn.”
With Chinese loans put at N3.2trn, which she said was about 10% of the total.
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