President Muhammadu Buhari has requested legislative approval for a supplementary budget of N895 billion.
His request was conveyed in a letter to the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan.
Lawan read the executive communication at the start of plenary on Tuesday.
Buhari’s request came on the heels of Federal Executive Council approval of the supplementary budget figure at its meeting about two weeks ago.
The supplementary budget, according to the federal government, was specifically meant to enhance the capacity of the military and para-military agencies to tackle the various security challenges in the country.
The budget is made up of N83.56 billion for COVID 19 vaccine programme, covering N30 billion vaccines from Johnson and Johnson vaccines and the logistics cost related to the deployment of the vaccine.
It also contains the sum of N1.69 billion for the Nigerian Comprehensive AIDS programme currently operating in the States and an additional contingency provision of N40 billion under the public service-wide wage adjustments to take care of the needs for allowances to the health and education sectors and other wage-related issues.
The council had also approved an aggregate sum of N770.60 billion to enhance the capacity of the defence and security agencies to address current and emerging security challenges in our country.
As part of the financing source for the supplementary budget, the Council also gave the approval to draw down on some existing World Bank loans amounting to about N39.58 billion.
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