Petrol subsidy removal: Tinubu asks n’assembly to approve N500bn for palliatives

President Bola Tinubu has asked the national assembly to approve N500 billion to allow the federal government to provide palliatives to cushion the effects of petrol subsidy removal on Nigerians.

Tinubu’s request is contained in a letter sent to the national assembly and read by Tajudeen Abbas, speaker of the house, during plenary on Wednesday.

The letter proposed an amendment to the 2022 supplementary appropriate act.

“I write to the house of reps to approve the amendment of the 2022 supplementary appropriation act in accordance to the attached,” the letter reads.

“The request has become necessarily important to, among other things, source for funds necessary to provide palliatives to mitigate the effects of the removal of fuel subsidy on Nigerians.

“Thus, the sum of N500 billion only has been extracted from the 2022 supplementary act of N819,536,937,815 for the provision of palliatives to cushion the effects of petrol subsidy removal.”

The president said he hoped the lawmakers will consider his request “expeditiously”.

In December, the national assembly passed a supplementary budget of N819 billion for the 2022 fiscal year.

At the time, the legislature also extended the implementation of the 2022 budget till March 31, 2023.

In May 2023, the national assembly passed the amendment to the 2022 supplementary budget to extend the implementation of the capital components to December 2023.