President Bola Tinubu has requested the House of Representatives to amend the 2022 Supplementary Appropriation Act.
The President in a letter addressed to the Speaker of the House, Abbas Tajuudeen, read at plenary on Wednesday said the amendment is to extract N500 billion from the 2022 supplementary budget to provide palliatives to cushion the effect of subsidy removal.
The letter read: “I write to request for the amendment of the 2022 supplementary Appropriation Act. The request became necessary to provide necessary palliatives to mitigate the effects of the removal of fuel subsidy on Nigerians.
“Thus, the sum of N500 billion has been extracted from the 2022 supplementary appropriation act of N819.536 billion for the provisions of palliatives to cushion the effects of subsidy removal. I seek the expeditious consideration of this request.”
The 9th House at the twilight of its exit passed a bill to extend the implementation of the Capital Aspect of the 2022 Supplementary Appropriation Act from June 30 to December 31, 2023.
The supplementary budget is financed by domestic borrowings and that raised the budget deficit for 2022 to 8.17 trillion and deficit GDP ratio to 4.43 percent.