By Mercy Aikoye
The House of Representatives has scrapped the budgetary allocation of the presidential yacht moving the proposed sum to student loan, thereby increasing allocation for student loan to N10bn, against the initial N5.5bn.
The Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Abubakar Bichi Abubakar, made this known on Thursday while addressing newsmen.
He said the need became necessary following low budgetary allocation for students.
The Committee also increased budgetary allocation to Ministry of Defence from N476bn to N546bn following security concerns.
Bichi also disclosed that the minimum wage for workers was considered and approved for onward transmission to the executive while promising proper legislative oversight to ensure 100 percent implementation
The sum of N100bn was retained for FCT as requested by the minister of FCT Nyesom Wike.
“On the office of national security, their initial budget was N27bn but currently we have increase their budget to N50bn. For the state house, their initial budget was N28bn and we maintained that.
“For INEC, initially their budget was N18bn, and yesterday we had an interaction with the INEC Chairman and he convinced us with his submissions and we maintained their N18bn.
“So far, we have approved N2,176, 791, 286, 33 trillion. We will continue to support the government so we can deliver democracy.
On the presidential yacht, Bichi said: “Actually, as far we are concerned, we don’t have that anymore. We have increased the student loan. Initially, student loan was N5bn in the budget but we have increased it to N5bn so that our students can access that facility in order for them to go to school. We don’t have the yacht anymore in budget.
To this end the House passed the sum of N2.177 trillion.
