The Federal Government has proposed to spend N65 billion on the Presidential Amnesty Programme and the reintegration of transformed ex-militants.
This is contained in the 2021 budget that is already before the National Assembly.
It would be recalled that President Muhammadu Buhari presented a budget of N13.08 trillion to the joint session of the National Assembly last Thursday.
Part of the proposal according to the budget document is the plan to spend N65 billion on the programme, which is aimed at keeping the oil region peaceful for production of crude oil, which is the country’s main source of budget financing.
The execitive also plan to spend another ₦5billion “for outsourced services”.
The Presidential Amnesty Programme and the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) have been plagued with allegations of corruption in recent time.
Also, Federal Government has budgeted N15 billion for the settlement of local contractors in the 2021 budget.
In August, contractors under the aegis of Local Contractors of Nigeria picketed the Federal Ministry of Finance demanding to be paid for contracts executed three to 12 years ago and running into billions of Naira in various Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the Federal Government.
The 2021 budget also set aside N5,750,380,668 for settlement of ex-workers of defunct Nigeria Airways.
Also for next year, the government has made provision to inject N15 billion into “Development Finance Institution (DFI).”
Though the budget did not specify if the N15 billion is for all the DFIs or just one.
Plans have been on to recapitalise the Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) with 2021 as the target year for additional funds to be injected into the bank.
The injection of additional capital into the DBN will boost its capacity to fund more Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).
Next year, the government will release a grant of ₦10 billion “to BoI to support low-interest lending to SMEs”.
Aside from DBN, other Development Finance Institutions in Nigeria include the Bank of Agriculture (BOA); Bank of Industry (BoI); Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN); Nigeria Export-Import Bank (NEXIM) and The Infrastructure Bank.
Under Service Wide Vote in 2021, N25 billion has been earmarked for special intervention; ₦5 billion to settle MDAs electricity bills.
N17,899,000,000 will be refunded into the special account, and another ₦16,703,390,000 will be returned to the Asset Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON) while ₦20 billion will be spent on special intervention programmes and projects next year.
₦15,000,000,000 will spent on subscription to shares in international organizations and NI billion on the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC).
Construction of the National Assembly library will take ₦4billion while ₦1billion will be used to execute the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) in 2021.
