Senate, Reps hurriedly pass Tinubu’s N2tn supplementary budget

Speaker Tajudeen Abbas and Senate President Godswill Akpabio

Senate, Reps hurriedly pass Tinubu’s N2tn supplementary budget

The Senate and House of Representatives have differently passed a supplementary budget of N2tn.
The upper legislative chamber passed the supplementary appropriation bill after Opeyemi Bamidele, majority leader of the Senate, led a debate on it.
The House of Representatives has also passed the same bill for another reading.
Before debate on the general principles of the bill, President Bola Tinubu’s request for the Senate to consider the budget was read on Tuesday.
Afterwards, the legislation scaled first and second reading.
Tinubu had asked the senate to “speedily” consider and approve the appropriation bill.
While leading the debate on the bill, Bamidele said the federal government needed to fund critical needs of the country.

The supplementary budget would support the provisional wage of N35,000 to workers, costing the Federal Government N210bn and N400bn as cash transfers to vulnerable Nigerians, among others.

Reps pass supplementary budget

The Senate and House of Representatives have differently accelerated the process of passing a supplementary budget of N2tn forwarded to them by President Bola Tinubu.

The N2.17tn supplementary appropriation bill passed first and second readings during plenary on Tuesday.

At the commencement of plenary, Tajudeen Abbas, speaker of the house, read President Bola Tinubu’s letter requesting the passage of the supplementary budget.

Breakdown
On Monday, the federal executive council (FEC) approved the submission of the supplementary budget to the national assembly.

Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Atiku Bagudu, who provided a breakdown of the budget, said N605bn is to be allocated to security and national defence, and N200bn is for the agricultural sector.

The minister also said the sum of N210bn has been earmarked for Federal Government workers for the approved wage awards meant to cover September to December, and N400bn has been budgeted for cash transfers to vulnerable and poor Nigerians between October and November.