Jonathan signs 2011 Appropriation, NSIA bills into law

Jonathan signs 2011 Appropriation, NSIA bills into law

President Goodluck Jonathan has signed the 2011 Amended Appropriation Bill and the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) Bill into law.

Speaking at the brief ceremony at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, Jonathan said his administration was fully committed to turning oil assets into a vehicle for wealth creation as well as economic diversification and investment.

He said the NSIA Bill was particularly historic because it was the first time Nigeria would have a law backing the creation of a sovereign wealth fund.

Transformation agenda

Jonathan said the fund would provide “a strong, transparent and effective tool for the management of the nation’s petroleum wealth for the benefit of Nigerians’’.

He said that revenues accruing to NSIA would be invested by the authority through three special funds –the Nigeria Infrastructure Fund, the Future Generations Fund and the Stabilisation Fund.

The infrastructure fund, the president said, would be dedicated to investments in the development of critical national infrastructure with 10 per cent of it going to agriculture and government-sponsored projects.

He said the future generations fund would build an inter-generational savings base by investing in longer term assets that would generate returns to accumulate wealth for future generations of Nigerians 

Similarly, Jonathan said the stabilisation fund would help to protect annual national budgets by providing a stable, last resort source of financing during periods of fiscal deficit resulting from a sustained fall in oil prices.

He commended the leadership and entire members of the National Assembly for the passage of the two bills.

The president also applauded the efforts made by the Minister of Finance, Mr Olusegun Aganga, toward the passage of the NSIA Bill.

Speaking on the Amended 2011 budget, Aganga said the delay in its passage was as a result of the April general elections and the vision of government to deliver a budget that “is not only implementable but in line with the transformation agenda’’.

Jonathan submitted the 2011 budget proposal to the National Assembly in December 2010, and NASS passed and sent it back to the president in March.

According to Aganga, the amended budget is for aggregate expenditure of N4.48 trillion, which is N487 billion lower than the N4.97 trillion passed by the National Assembly in March.

NAN/Williams