By Abdul Seye
The House of Representatives has removed the controversial N5 billion presidential yacht from the 2023 supplementary budget.
The budget was passed on Tuesday by the House after adopting the report submitted by the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Abubakar Bichi from Kano State.
The Committee of Supply considered the recommendations of the Appropriations Committee and passed the bill.
Bichi, after the passage of the budget, spoke with journalists and announced that the controversial presidential yacht was removed by the committee.
He stated that the N5 billion was moved to the Student Loans, increasing the allocation for student loans to 10bn as against 5. 5bn
The Committee also increased the 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
The sum of 100bn was also retained for FCT as requested by the minister of the FCT, Nyesom Wike
The House, therefore, passed the sum of N2.177 trn as the supplementary budget.
Recall that the proposal by President Bola Tinubu had included spending N1.5 billion on vehicles for the office of the First Lady, N5 billion on a presidential yacht and another N12.5 billion on the presidential air fleet.
There are ongoing campaigns on social media to stop the National Assembly from approving the supplementary budget, however, the bill has been given speedy approval.
Following the passage of the bill, Speaker Tajudeen Abbas announced that the president would sign the bill on Friday.
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