The Senate has said there was no provision for N5,000 monthly grant for 40 million Nigerians for transportation allowance in the 2022 budget currently before the National Assembly.
Speaking with journalists yesterday after submission of its committee budget proposal, Chairman, Senate Committee on Finance, Senator Olamilekan Adeola said the proposal must come to National Assembly because it is going to cost N2.4 trillion.
Adeola (APC, Lagos West), added that the intervention move is a rumour to the senate because it has not been informed.
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He said, “What are the criteria that would be used to determine beneficiaries of the transportation allowance?”, he queried.
‘It’s rumour to me’
“I don’t want to go into details, if there is something like that, a document needs to come to 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.
“For us we still believe it is news because this budget we are considering contains subsidy and if we are passing a budget with subsidy in the fiscal document, we can’t speak because that is the document that is currently before us.
“The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning was quoted as saying that 40 million Nigerians will be paid N5,000 as transportation allowance, in lieu of the fuel subsidy.
“I don’t want to go into details for now. I believe that if such a proposal is to come to pass, a document to that effect must be sent to the National Assembly for us to see how feasible this is and how we identify the 40 million Nigerians that are going to benefit from this process. “There are still a lot of issues to be deliberated upon and looked into if eventually this will come to pass and how do we raise the money to pay these 40 million Nigerians?
“So, this is not provided for already in the 2022 budget. We don’t have anywhere in the budget where 40 million Nigerians will collect N5,000 monthly as transportation allowance, totaling N2.4 trillion.
“I know that there must be a budgetary provision for this for us (National Assembly) to consider. That is why I said it is still news out there until it formally comes to the National Assembly for either a virement to the budget or re-ordering of the budget.
“For now, I still want to take it as a rumour and as news until it is formally presented before the National Assembly.”
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