Reps Throw Out N5bn Presidential Yacht From Supplementary Budget

*Increase Students’ Loan To N10bn The House of Representatives has yanked off the budgetary allocation of N5.09 billion for purchase of a presidential yacht in the N2.176trn supplementary budget submitted to the lawmakers. The House, instead, moved the proposed sum to students’ loan thereby increasing allocation for students’ loan to 10bn as against 5. 5bn earlier provided in the supplementary budget. The action of the lawmakers followed the public outcry that trailed the provision made a presidential yacht amidst the hardship Nigerians are facing following the removal of fuel subsidy and other policies by the current administration. Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations, Abubakar Bichi Abubakar (APC, Kano) made this known while addressing newsmen after the passage of the N2.176 trillion supplementary budget. He said the need became necessary following low budgetary allocation for students. He said the committee also increased budgetary allocation of the Ministry of Defence from 476bn to 546bn following security concerns. Bichi also disclosed that the minimum wage for workers was considered and approved for onward transmission to the executive while promising proper legislative oversight to ensure 100 percent implementation. In the supplementary budget sent to the National Assembly by the president, the federal government allocated N5.09 billion to purchase a presidential yacht. The proposed sum was under the capital expenditure of the Nigerian Navy’s budget. According to the breakdown, the Navy will require N62.8 billion for its operations, with recurrent expenditure and capital expenditure gulping N20.4 billion and N42.3 billion, respectively. But Bichi said the five billion naira for the presidential yacht has been yanked off from the budget. On the presidential yacht, Bichi said, “Actually, as far as we are concerned, we don’t have that anymore. We have increased the student loan. Initially, the student loan was N5bn in the budget but we have increased it to N5bn so that our students can access that facility in order for them to go to school. We don’t have the yacht anymore in budget.

Ways and Means: Tinubu Won’t Exceed Statutory Limit– Edun

President Bola Tinubu will not go above statutory limits in obtaining budget support facilities from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) through the Ways and Means Advances. The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr Wale Edun, said this at the weekend in Marrakech, at the ongoing World Bank/International Monetary Fund (IMF) Annual Meetings. He said that Tinubu was committed to “keeping with the spirit and the letter” of autonomy of the CBN. The stakeholders and financial experts had criticised former President Muhammadu Buhari for worsening the country’s debt burden. By obtaining more than N22.7 trillion in Ways and Means Advances from the apex bank. Edun, however, said that the country was discussing with the World Bank for a 1.5 billion dollars budget support. “The World Bank is the number one development bank that helps developing countries to fund their projects and programmes. “We are happy that the funding will come in soon. World Bank money is the cheapest, ” he said. The minister said that the government was also concerned about financing. “About one trillion dollars is needed to meet the target of climate change globally. These is a climate financing fund which is relatively cheap. “There is also a commitment to help Africa and the third world with climate transition because they are not responsible for climate change in any substantial way. “One of the ways to help them is through climate financing and we will be looking at green bond and more climate financing options,” he said.