The House of Representatives descended into rowdiness on Thursday as members hotly debate President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s request to extend the implementation period of the N21.83 trillion capital component of the 2023 budget.
However, the Senate extended the plan for the capital component of the 2023 budget to run until 31st December 2024.
The Upper Chamber also extended the implementation of the N2.17 trillion 2023 supplementary budget until December.
The Senate President announced the extension of the appropriation Bills during the emergency plenary after it was read for the first, second and third times and passed by a majority of the senators.
The appropriation Bills were separately considered at the senate committee on supply.
This would be the second time that the lawmakers will be extending implementation of the 2023 budget and its components since beginning of this administration.
In March, the Upper Chamber extended implementation of the capital component of the 2023 budget and implementation of the N2.17 trillion 2023 supplementary budget until June.
With the development, it means that the 2023 budget will be implemented for two years despite the existence of the 2024 budget, and the Federal Government is currently running two years’ budgets in one.
The Senate Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele, presented a lead debate on the extension of the money Bills.
Bamidele said that the extension was required to allow the Federal Government complete ongoing projects captured in the budgets.
He said, “This Bill therefore, intends to further extend the implementation period of the Acts to 31st December, 2024 in view of the strategic importance of some key projects nearing completion, and to allow for continued implementation for the maximum benefit of the country.
“Undoubtedly, this would go a long way to avoid the compounding problems of abandoned projects. Hence, the need for the enactment of this proposed legislations to extend the implementation,” Bamidele said.
Problem in the House broke out when Speaker Tajudeen Abbas read a letter from the President after, which the Executive Bills requesting the extension were introduced.
The Leader of the House, Rep. Julius Ihonvbere, moved for the second reading of the Bills.
However, Rep. Kingsley Chinda, the House Minority Leader, raised concern on the request for extension of the two budgets.
Chinda said that it would be morally wrong for the country to be running three to four budgets concurrently.
He said that the 2024 budget is currently being implemented while the Executive is still requesting for the extension of the 2023 main and supplementary budgets at the same time.
According to him, rather than extension, important projects in the supplementary budget should be moved to the 2024 budget.
Rep. Alhassan Doguwa (APC-Kano) in his contribution supported the position of the minority leader, saying that it would be morally wrong to have three budgets running at the same time.
The Speaker, however, appealed to members to support the extension of the budget implementation.
He said most of the items on the supplementary budget were security related issues.
In spite of his plea, majority of the lawmakers appeared not comfortable with the request for extension of the budgets as they kept on shouting “No, no.”
Following the disagreement, Abbas asked that the House should go into an Executive session for members to iron out issues before resuming consideration of the Bills.
