President Bola Tinubu has asked the House of Representatives to amend the 2022 Supplementary Appropriations Act to provide N500 billion to fund palliative measures against the impact of fuel subsidy removal.
The request was convened in a letter read by the Speaker of the House, Tajudeen Abbas, during the plenary on Wednesday.
President Tinubu is seeking to extract N500 billion from the N819,536,937,813 supplementary budget.
Former President Muhammadu Buhari introduced the supplementary budget in 2022 for capital projects due to the impact of the floods on farmlands and road infrastructure.
The life span of the budget has since been extended till 31 December.
“I write to request an amendment to the 2022 supplementary appropriation Act in accordance with the attached. The request has become necessary in other to, among other things, source funds necessary to provide palliatives to mitigate the effect of the recent removal of fuel subsidy on Nigerians.
“Thus, the sum of N500 billion has been extracted from the 2022 supplementary budget of N819 billion for the provision of palliative. I hope the House will consider this request expeditiously,” the President’s letter reads.
Speaker Abbas announced that the request would be considered on Thursday by the House.
Subsidy removal
When he assumed office as Nigeria’s 16th leader on 29 May, Mr Tinubu announced the removal of fuel subsidy, a decision that saw the price of petrol jump three-fold across the country.
Following the announcement, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) directed its outlets nationwide to sell fuel between N480 and N570 per litre, an almost 200 per cent increase from the initial price below N200.
The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) had initially planned a nationwide strike to protest the removal. However, the planned strike was suspended following a parley between them and the government, with some agreements reached.
While the administration has been commended for taking swift action on petroleum subsidy, there are still concerns about the impact of the removal, especially as it relates to the increase in the price of PMS and its multiplier effect on almost every sector of the country’s economy and households.
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