House of Reps Approves N500bn Request for Palliatives

The House of Representatives has approved the sum of N500 billion for the Federal Government to roll out palliatives, following the removal of subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit (petrol).

The approval was sequel to the consideration and approval of a request by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for the amendment of the 2022 Supplementary Appropriation Act.

The President had in a letter addressed to the Speaker of the House, Rt. Hon. Abbas Tajudeen, PhD, read out to members on the floor of the House on Wednesday, proposed an amendment to the Act to allocate N500bn to post-subsidy palliative programme of the Tinubu administration.

President Tinubu said: “I write to the House of Representatives to approve the amendment of the 2022 Supplementary Appropriation Act in accordance with the attached.

“The request has become necessarily important to, among other things, source for funds necessary to provide palliatives to mitigate the effect of the removal of fuel subsidy on Nigerians.

“Thus, the sum of N500,000,000,000 only has been extracted from the 2022 Supplementary Act of N819,536,937,815 for the provision of palliative to cushion the effect of petrol subsidy removal.

“Whilst I hope that the House of Representatives will consider this request expeditiously, please accept, Rt. Honourable Speaker, the assurances of my highest consideration.

”At the plenary today, presided over by the Speaker, several members who spoke on the President’s request expressed their support for PMS subsidy removal and the readiness of the House to back the Tinubu administration on how to cushion the effects of the post-subsidy regime on the masses.

Consequently, the House suspended its rules to accelerate consideration and approval of President Tinubu’s request, making the money bill to pass first, second and third readings immediately.