A request on Thursday by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for the extension of 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 generated heated debate and tension among lawmakers in the House of Representatives.
Speaker Abbas Tajudeen read the letter after which the executive bills requesting the extension were introduced.
But 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 expressing opposition to the request, said it would be morally wrong for the country to be 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.
The lawmaker 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.
The Speaker in his intervention, appealed to members to support the extension of the budget implementation, saying most of the items on the supplementary budget were security related issues.
But inspite of his pleas, majority of the lawmakers appeared not comfortable with the request for extension of the budgets, shouting, “No!”No!”
Following the development, the Speaker requested 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.
