The Nigerian Senate has approved a Supplementary Budget of five hundred and seventy-four billion naira for President MUHAMMADU BUHARI.
The figure shows an increase of over one hundred billion naira from President BUHARI’s proposal of four hundred and sixty-five point five billion naira.
Our correspondent reports that the Senate decided to raise the supplementary budget to make provision for additional one hundred and eight billion naira for fuel subsidy payment to cover the last quarter of 2015.The Federal lawmakers took the decision after discovering that the provision was not captured in the proposal put forward by the President.The Senate Committee on Appropriation noted that the initial amount for subsidy payment only covered the period up to the month of September.In his remarks after the unanimous passage of the supplementary bill, the Senate President, BUKOLA SARAKI, charged the relevant committees to ensure proper monitoring of the projects and programmes covered in budget.The Senators including Senate President, SARAKI who decried the huge sum sum of money the country is losing to few individuals, urged President MOHAMMADU BUHARI to summon the courage to remove the fuel subsidy.You will recall that the prevailing fuel crisis across the country has been blamed on non-payment of a backlog of subsidy to oil marketers.
