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Bill seeking amendment of 2022 budget scales second reading in Senate

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A Bill seeking to amend the 2022 Budget scaled second reading in the Senate on Wednesday.

The bill which is sponsored by the Senate Leader, Yahaya Abdullahi, sought to amend the 2022 budget by adjusting the capital expenditure to N106 billion and recurrent expenditure to N43 billion without increasing the budget deficit.

President Muhammadu Buhari had in a letter to the Senate last month called for the removal of all capital projects that were duplicated in the 2022 budget.

He said 139 out of the 254 projects in the budget totalling N13.24 billion had been listed for removal.

The President also requested for additional N2.557 trillion to be deployed as fuel subsidy in the 2022 Budget.

Abdullahi, who led the debate on the bill at the plenary, said the amendment would involve 11 areas including funding to cushion the impacts of the suspension of fuel subsidy removal.

He said: “Others include: restoring the provisions made for various key projects in the 2022 budget to ensure that critical projects that are key to the administration are implemented among others.”

READ ALSO: Reps summon foreign affairs minister to defend demand for amendment of 2022 budget

In his submission, Senator Gabriel Suswam expressed reservation over the high tax expenditure in the 2022 budget.

He said: “Tax expenditures are waivers that are given to individuals or companies.

“Mr President, if you look at the tax expenditure in 2022, it is about N1 trillion and totally unnecessary.

“It is not just what the President has sent here, let us consider those areas that can help them save money, because we might decide to step down those tax expenditures.”

The Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, later referred the bill to the Senate Committee on Appropriation for further work.

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