A detailed breakdown of how President Bola Tinubu’s N819 billion palliative package will be shared has been revealed, showing that Lawmakers in the National Assembly will get ₦70 billion allocation. According to the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Benjamin Kalu, the passage of the N500 billion requested by President Tinubu will chiefly address the sufferings of Nigerians occasioned by the removal of fuel subsidy while also taking care of other infrastructural challenges brought by the 2022 flood disaster nationwide.
President Bola Tinubu The request which seeks to amend the 2022 supplementary appropriation act to extract N500 billion from the budget was titled “A Bill for an Act to Authorize the issuance of the sum of (N500, 000, 000, 000.00) five hundred billion, Naira, only from the 2022 Supplementary Appropriations of (N819, 536, 937, 815.00) only for the provisions of palliatives to Nigerians to cushion the effect of fuel subsidy removal”. It will be recalled that Tinubu had on Wednesday, July 12, 2023, requested the passage of the N500 billion from the supplementary budget for subsidy palliatives. Recall also that the national assembly had in December 2022 passed a supplementary budget of N819 billion earmarked for Agriculture – N69 billion. Similarly, Works Ministry was to be given N704 billion, the federal capital territory administration, FCTA, N30 billion while the Ministry of Water Resources got N15.5 billion. The N819 billion supplementary budget will now be used for the following purposes. The breakdown of the funds indicated that the N500 billion component of the N819 billion was meant for fuel subsidy palliative, N185.2 billion was for the Ministry of Works, N19.2 billion was now earmarked for Ministry of Agriculture, N100 million was for the Ministry of Water Resources, N35 billion for National Judicial Council, the FCTA to get N10 billion and N70 billion earmarked for the national assembly infrastructure. Briefing journalists alongside the principal officers of the House after the plenary session, the deputy speaker, Hon. Benjamin Kalu emphasized that what the House passed was to cushion the effect of the fuel subsidy on Nigerians. He said: “We took a decision today in view of the current pain that everybody is complaining about as a result of the bold steps taken by Mr President. He removed the oil subsidy but not to be insensitive to the ends and the welfare of the people and in line with the provision of the constitution he needed to complete the process by engaging the parliament to do their bit for that particular bill to become act. “But while the debate was going on, there were some presentations that were misrepresented. “There are various components of that bill. The bill did not speak about one component. That bill which is about N819 billion was not only for palliatives and so, the breakdown was not only for palliatives, discussion was not only about palliatives. The palliatives component of that particular bill was on N500 billion that is to cushion the impact of the oil subsidy, because you know Mr. President from what we understood believes that we can delay gratification for a greater gain tomorrow. So, we suffer a little bit now because of the impact of the subsidy and then when we get our country into autopilot with regards to our economy, we will now begin to enjoy the decision of the oil subsidy. “But having said that we will feel the pain now, that is what you and I are feeling and the wisdom of Mr President said parliament approve N500 million, let us put it towards making a socio-economic impact directly on the lives on Nigerians. That was what the parliament passed today. “And I want to assure you that we have done our bit and I am sure the senators will also do their bit today or in few days coming to enable us immediately attack this matter of urgent public importance which is the welfare of Nigerians. “Other components have to do with Ministry of Works and these monies are domiciled in various ministries. “The greater component which is the N500 billion for palliatives is with ministry of finance and you have another component which has to do with taking care of alleviating the severe impact of flooding that took place in 2022 and affected various road infrastructure across the nation, that component is receiving about N185 billion or thereabout. “Other components have to do with the massive destruction of our farmlands which was as a result of flooding that we experienced and that sector will be receiving outside the N500 billion for the palliatives, that sector will be receiving about N19.2 billion and it is going to be domiciled or housed by federal ministry of agriculture. “And there are other needs of the nation that were also captured in the other components of the bill including the judicial service commission which is N35 billion and others. “So, I just wanted to make it clear with the leadership that what we did today was not just for the palliatives so that the narrative that will be out there will not be that we passed a palliative bill to take care of the Judicial Commission, to take care of National Assembly. “And it is the National Assembly infrastructure that we are talking about when we mentioned component that has to do with National Assembly for infrastructure. But the major part of the whole bill we passed today was to help Nigerians who due to the removal of subsidy are feeling the impact.”