The House of Representatives today Thursday killed the N5 billion reportedly budgeted for acquiring a yacht for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The development came as the Senate and the House of Representatives passed the N2.17trn 2023 Supplementary Appropriation Bill after its third reading.
Before the passage of the bill, the Senate adopted the report of the harmonized sittings of both the Red Chamber and Green Chamber on the 2023 Supplementary Appropriation Bill as submitted by Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola (APC Ogun West).
The lawmakers quickly passed the bill as they insisted it was for the benefit of the country.
President Bola Tinubu had written the National Assembly seeking the approval of the sum of N2,176,791,286,033 as 2023 supplementary budget to address labour wage adjustments, security and more.
The President had also sent the 2024-2026 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) & Fiscal Strategy Paper to both chambers of the National Assembly.
Breaking the news about the yacht to newsmen after the passage of the Supplementary budget today Thursday, Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, Honourable Abubakar Bichi, said the lawmakers considered public interest in rejecting the purchase.
Instead of the budget for the yacht, he disclosed that its N5.5 billion transferred to the Student Loan initiative.
As a result, the budgetary allocation for the Student Loan has been jacked up to N10 billion.
“As far as we are concerned we don’t have that presidential yacht anymore. We have increased the student loan. If you recall, the student loan was N5 billion in the budget but we have increased it to N10 billion,” Bichi said.
The committee also increased the budgetary allocation of the Ministry of Defence from N476 billion to N546 billion.
The reps said the sum of N100 billion was retained for the FCT as requested by the Minister of FCT, Nyesom Wike.
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 per cent implementation.