President Bola Tinubu has asked the National Assembly to authorize his government to spend N500 billion in supporting Nigerians following his government’s removal of petrol subsidy.
The request comes more than a month the new president scrapped fuel subsidy, causing prices to rise nearly three-fold. Millions of citizens have struggled with high prices for weeks, made worse by sky-high inflation.
Consumer prices reached 22.41% in the year through May, the highest in 18 years. Food inflation was 24.82% from 24.61% in April.
The World Bank has approved a $800 million for the Nigerian government from which it said N5000 will be transferred to poor Nigerians to cushion the impact of ending the fuel subsidy. There are concerns, however, how much relief the payments would bring when matched with the scale of price increase.
The federal government said in April the payments target 50,000 people in 10 million households.
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In a letter to the House of Representatives, read Wednesday, Mr Tinubu requested the lawmakers to amend the 2023 supplementary budget and provide N500 billion to fund measures against the impact of fuel subsidy removal.
The president wants the money drawn from the N819.5 billion-supplementary budget originally set aside by the former Buhari administration for capital projects due to the impact of the floods on farmlands and road infrastructure, according to a letter read by speaker Tajudeen Abbas on Wednesday.
“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,” it said.
“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 House said it will discuss the matter on Thursday.
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