Elizabeth O.
The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, on Thursday, announced the Federal Government would prepare an additional budget to be sent to the National Assembly to cater for COVID-19 vaccines and vaccination.
She said the fiscal copy would be readied in March.
Ahmed enunciate at the chaste edition of the State House briefing held at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
“There will be an additional 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 a supplementary budget, at that time, we will take that decision; if not, we will just report the review,” she said.
Ahmed indicated that the first batch of COVID-19 vaccines will arrive in the country next week when she said, “We have a provision in the 2021 budget for immunization. We are already releasing money to the health authorities to start operation in the first batch of vaccines that are taking off to arrive in the country in one week.
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“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 stands taken to the National Assembly as a supplementary budget particularly for COVID -19 vaccination.”
The minister again said the level of Nigeria’s borrowing is not too high contrary to the widespread belief, aso Naija reports.
“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.
