The House, in its resolution, committed the request to the Committee on Appropriation and other relevant committee to which the virement relates to serve as Sub-Committee of the Committee on Appropriations.
Although, the Deputy Speaker, Hon. Yussuff Lasun, who presided over the plenary did not give room for debate on the motion, the committees responsible for the virement, have been mandate to report back to the House for final consideration and approval.
The motion titled, "request for virement of funds appropriated in the Appropriation Act, 2016," was sponsored by the Majority of the House, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila.
Recall that Buhari's letter bearing the request was read on the floor by Speaker Yakubu Dogara on October 25, 2016, explaining that in the course of implementation of the budget, various MDAs presented issues pertaining to salary shortfalls, as it affects those that are not under the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS), and even others under the scheme would be locked out as their personnel costs would not cover salaries for the rest of the year, a development and other needs, he said necessitated the request.
President Buhari had in the letter dated 24 October, 2016 requested for the approval of movement of about N180. 84 billion allocated to certain subheads in the 2016 budget to other areas he described as "critical expenditure items."
According to the President, "this request has arisen due to a number of reasons including; shortfalls in the provisions for personnel costs, inadequate provision ab inito for some items like the amnesty programme, continuing requirements to sustain the war against insurgency, and depreciation of the Naira."
Buhari had also noted that budgeted revenues were running behind target largely due to the renewed violence in the Niger Delta, and without supplementary revenue sources, adding that the salary shortfalls "has led to the depletion of the Public Service Wage Adjustment (PSWA)", which had an allocation of N33.597 billion, but now with a balance of N2.758 billion.
The President also explained that due the shortfalls and the other challenges, "the total recurrent expenditure requirement is N166.63 billion while the capital expenditure is N14.208 billion."
Leading debate on the motion, Hon. Gbajabiamila noted that the request was in respect of virement of funds appropriated for Special Intervention (Recurrent) and Special Intervention (Capital) to fund some critical recurrent and capital items, and "the request was necessitated by a number of reasons, including shortfalls in provisions of personnel cost, the inadequate provision for the amnesty programme, the need to sustain the war against insurgency and the depreciation of the naira."
The lawmaker said that Nigerian Air Force needs to cover the foreign exchange differentials in the procurement of its critical equipment and augment the contingency vote, and also to provide for inadequacy in the provision for the National Youth Service Corps in the 2016 budget, among others.
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