There was a heated debate at the House of Representatives on Thursday over the request by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to extend the implementation period for the capital component of the N21.83trillion 2023 budget and those of the N2.17trillion 2023 supplementary budgets to December 2024.
Daily Trust reports that the letter to that effect was read by Speaker Abbas Tajudeen after which the executive bills requesting the extension were introduced.
However, when the Leader of the House, Prof Julius Ihonvbere, moved for the second reading of the bills, the House Minority Leader, Kingsley Chinda, raised concerns over the request for extension of the two budgets.
Chinda, while voicing opposition against the request, said it will be morally wrong for the country to running three to four budgets concurrently.
He said the 2024 budget is currently being implemented and the executive is still requesting for extension of the 2023 main budget and supplementary budget at the same time.
He said rather than extension, important projects in the supplementary budget should be moved to the main budget.
Former leader of the House, Alhassan Ado Doguwa in his contribution also supported the position of the Minority Leader, saying it will be morally wrong to have three budgets running at the same.
Speaker Abbas Tajudeen while intervening, appealed to members to support the extension of the budget implementation, saying most of the items on the supplementary budget were security related issues.
Despite his pleas, majority of the lawmakers appeared not comfortable with the request for extension of the budgets as they kept on shouting “No!”No!”
Following the development, Speaker Abbas Tajudeen asked that the House go into an executive session for members to iron out issues before resuming consideration of the bills.
The House is currently in an executive session.
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