27th June, 2024
By Femi Ogunshola
There was a rowdy session in the House of Representatives on Thursday as members engaged in a heated debate over President Bola Tinubu’s request to extend the implementation period of the N21.83 trillion capital component of the 2023 budget.
Also debated was the extension of the N2.17trillion 2023 supplementary budget to Dec. 2024.
Problem began when the Speaker, Tajudeen Abbas during the plenary read a letter from President Tinubu after which the executive bills requesting the extension were introduced.
The Leader of the House, Rep. Julius Ihonvbere, moved for the second reading of the bills.
However, Rep. Kingsley Chinda, the House Minority Leader, raised concern on the request for extension of the two budgets.
Chinda said that it would be morally wrong for the country to be running three to four budgets concurrently.
He said that the 2024 budget is currently being implemented while the executive is still requesting for the extension of the 2023 main and supplementary budgets at the same time.
According to him, rather than extension, important projects in the supplementary budget should be moved to the 2024 budget.
Rep. Alhassan Doguwa (APC-Kano) in his contribution supported the position of the minority leader, saying that it would be morally wrong to have three budgets running at the same time.
The Speaker, however, appealed to members to support the extension of the budget implementation.
He said most of the items on the supplementary budget were security related issues.
In spite of his plea, majority of the lawmakers appeared not comfortable with the request for extension of the budgets as they kept on shouting “No, no.”
Following the disagreement, Abbas asked that the House should go into an executive session for members to iron out issues before resuming consideration of the bills. (NAN)