…Goes on close door session
By Paul Effiong, Abuja
The House of Representatives yesterday engaged in heated debate over the request by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to extend the implementation period for the capital component of the N21.83trillion 2023 budget and those of the N2.17tn 2023 supplementary budgets to December 2024.
The Speaker Hon Tajudeen Abbas had read the letter where president request was presented to the lawmakers urging for consideration and attention.
It was observed that immediately after the Leader of the House, Prof Julius Ihonvbere moved for the second reading of the bills, Hon Kingsley Chinda who is the Minority leader in the House of Representatives raised concerns against the president request for extension of the two budgets.
Hon Chinda equally observed before his colleagues that it was morally wrong for the country to run three to four budgets concurrently at the same time.
The lawmaker recalled that the 2024 budget is currently being implemented while at the same time the executive arms of government is still requesting for the extension of the 2023 main budget and supplementary budget.
The minority leader however, urged the executive arms of government to ensure full implementation of the budget rather than extension of time frame stressing that important projects in the supplementary budget should be moved to the 2024 budget.
In his contribution, the former House Leader, Alhassan Ado Doguwa while supporting the position of the Minority Leader added that it would be morally wrong to have three budgets running concurrently at the same time.
In his reaction, the speaker of the House, Tajudden Abbas used the opportunity to appeal to lawmakers to support the extension of the budget implementation circle adding that items on the supplementary budget are security related issues.
It was gathered that despite repeated appeal for calmness, majority of the lawmakers seem were not comfortable with the request for extension of the budgets implimentation as many were seen shouting no to the extension.
While lawmakers were still debating and arguing over the extension period of the budget, the Speaker directed the House into an executive session for members to iron out issues before resuming consideration of the bills.
As at the time of fielding in this story, the Green Chambers are already on an executive session.
