Senator Solomon Adeola, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, has revealed that the monthly N5,000 transportation stipend for 40 million Nigerians designed to cushion the effect of the anticipated fuel subsidy reduction is not included in the 2022 budget.
Senator Adeola told journalists after submitting his Committee’s budget for 2022 on Wednesday that before the administration may engage in such intervention, the idea must first be approved by the National Assembly.
He explained that there is no way the executive would take a unilateral decision on a programme that is expected to gulp N2.4 trillion without getting the approval of the National Assembly.
“I don’t want to go into details; if there is something like that, a document needs to come to the National Assembly and how do they want to identify the identity of the beneficiaries. This is not provided for in the 2022 budget proposal which is N2.4 trillion,” the lawmaker declared.
He further stated that “for us, we still believe it is news because this budget we are considering contains subsidy and if we are passing a budget with a subsidy in the fiscal document, we can’t speak because that is the document that is currently before us.”
On Tuesday, the federal government stated that it had plans in place to mitigate the economic impact of the planned subsidy removal.
Minister of Finance Zainab Ahmed announced plans to replace fuel subsidies with a N5,000 monthly transportation subsidy for the poor.
According to the committee, the anticipated payment needs to be approved by the National Assembly.
However, this has elicited a variety of responses, including a rejection of the planned petrol price hike and the proposed transportation palliative by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).
The plan is a “penny wise-pound foolish” gamble, according to NLC President Ayuba Wabba.
He accused the administration of speaking in a monotone when it came to a decision on subsidy elimination, stressing that it will continue to oppose deregulation based on the importation of petroleum goods.
