From Fred Itua, Abuja
The plan by the Federal Government to pay N5,000 monthly to 40 million Nigerians as transportation allowance to cushion the effect of subsidy removal may hit the rock as Senate, yesterday, said there was no provision for it in the 2022 budget.
Rather, it said there was provision for subsidy in the 2022 budget submitted by the Executive to the National Assembly.
Speaking with newsmen after the submission of its committee budget proposal, Adeola Solomon, chairman, Senate Committee on Finance, said before the Executive can embark on such an intervention, the proposal must come to the National Assembly because it is going to cost N2.4 trillion. He queried the criteria that would be used to determine beneficiaries of the transportation allowance.
He said the proposal is still a rumour to the him as the chairman of finance committee.
“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 beneficiaries, this is not provided for in 2022 budget proposal which is N2.4 trillion.
“For us we still believe is a 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.
“Minister of Finance, budget and National Planning was quoted as saying that 40 million Nigerians will be paid N5000 as transportation allowance, in lieu of the fuel subsidy.
“I don’t want to go into details for nowI believe that if such proposal is to come to pass, a document to.that effect must be sent to National Assembly for us to see how feasible this is and how do we identify the 40 million Nigerians that are going to benefit from this process.”