President Bola Tinubu, House of Reps logo
By Our Reporter
What is considered as check mating the excesses of the presidency in many quarters reared its head on Tuesday, as the House of Representatives rejected the N4.79bn budgetary allocation for a presidential yacht contained in the N2.176trn supplementary budget for the 2023 financial year transmitted to it by President Bola Tinubu.
In passing the supplementary budget on Thursday, the House moved the sum proposed for the yacht to student loan, bringing the total sum for the scheme to N10bn up from the initial N5.5bn.
Abubakar Bichi, who heads the House Appropriation Committee, revealed this while addressing journalists after plenary on Thursday.
“As far as we are concerned, we don’t need the presidential yacht anymore.
“We have increased the student Loan. If you can recall, the student loan was N5 bn in the budget, but now we have increased it from N5bn to N10bn so that our students will be able to access that facility for them to be able to go to school and to be able to afford them,” the lawmaker said.
Bichi added that the committee increased the budgetary allocation of the Ministry of Defence from the initial allocation of N476bn to N546bn.
According to him, the four-month wage award of N210bn for workers was considered and approved for onward transmission to the President for implementation.
He pledged adequate legislative oversight to ensure 100 per cent implementation.
