Fuel scarcity: Senate jacks up subsidy budget

The senate has approved the supplementary budget of President Muhammadu Buhari, increasing it from N465 billion to N574 billion to cover fuel subsidy claims.

While presenting the supplementary appropriation bill on Tuesday, Danjuma Goje, chairman of the senate committee on appropriations, explained that the initial amount budgeted for the settlement of subsidy claims only covered the period from January to September.

Goje said it was important to include October to December in the budget in order to avert scarcity of fuel.

The budget had passed second reading at the senate without a debate on November 24, when Senate President Bukola Saraki referred the bill to the committee‎ for further legislative treatment.

Taking the lead in the debate on the bill on Tuesday, Ali Ndume, senate leader, implored the committee on appropriations to investigate how the funds in the budget would be spent.

He posited that senate was being blackmail to approve the budget owing to the scarcity of fuel across the country at the time of its consideration.

Ndume thereafter urged the senate to approve the budget to alleviate the suffering of Nigerians.

Making his own contribution, Godswill Akpabio, senate minority leader, said sarcastically that the new government’s change campaign should have necessitated a total removal of fuel subsidy so that the market forces would determine the price of product.

‎He also urged the senate to approve the budget, after which the budget was approved.

On November 18, Buhari had sent the supplementary budget to the senate for approval.

In a letter read on the floor of the upper legislative chamber by Saraki, the president hinged his request for a supplementary budget on the shortage of funds required for carrying out important projects.

A partial breakdown of the budget shows N29 billion is for operation lafiya dole, which is the anti-insurgency campaign in the northeast; N2 billion for feeding of students of unity schools and N413 billion for settlement of subsidy claims.

According to the letter, Nigeria will borrow about N2.1 trillion to finance the budget and service debts.

Buhari had explained that the increase of the loan from N882 billion (as contained in the 2015 budget) to N2.1 trillion was because of the plunge fall in the global price of crude oil.

He said the 2015 budget was pegged at $53 oil benchmark, but that the price had since plummeted further; hence the need to borrow money to finance the budget and service the nation’s debts..