Senate on Tuesday at plenary passed two bills seeking to extend implementation of capital components of 2022 Appropriation bills to June 30.
The upper chamber’s resolution followed presentation of the two bills, sponsored by Sen Gobir Abdullahi (APC-Sokoto).
Consequently, the two bills that passed final passage are: Bill for an Act to Amend the 2022 Appropriation Act and. Bill for an Act to Amend the 2022 Supplementary Appropriation Act.
Abdullahi in his presentation said the bills seeks to amend the 2022 appropriation act and 2022 supplementary appropriation act to extend implementation year from March 31 to June 30.
He said the National Assembly had extended the implementation of the 2022 appropriation Act from Dec 31 2022 to March 31 ,2023.
This, he said was to allow full implementation of the budget, given the approval of supplementary budget approved in Dec 2022.
He said the extension had allowed Ministries Department and Agencies (MDAs) to use a large proportion of funds released to them.
He, however, said significant amounts of funds remained with MDAs and would require a further extension to be fully extended.
He said given the critical importance of some key projects nearing completion, request for further extension of the expiration clause in the appropriation act and the long title explanatory memorandum of the supplementary appropriation act was expedient.
This, he said was to avoid compounding the problem of abandoned projects, given that some of the projects were not provided for in the 2023 budget.
Abdullahi urged senators to support the bill to allow full utilization of the capital releases to help reflate the economy.