President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has announced that approximately 12 million households will receive N8,000 each over a period of six months to alleviate the hardships faced by Nigerians as a result of the removal of subsidies.
In a letter presented by Speaker Tajudeen Abbas during the plenary session on Thursday, Tinubu emphasized that the initiative was specifically designed to assist indigent and vulnerable individuals in Nigeria in meeting their basic needs.
The letter is currently awaiting approval for additional financing for the national social safety net program, which has been scaled up by the National Assembly. Tinubu explained that this program would have a positive impact on approximately 60 million individuals.
To ensure the credibility of the process, the President stated that the funds would be digitally transferred directly to the beneficiaries’ accounts.
The motive behind this move by the President is to mitigate the effects of fuel subsidy removal, which he had announced during his inauguration on May 29 in Abuja. The removal of fuel subsidy resulted in a significant increase in the prices of petroleum products, as well as elevated food and transportation costs.
In his letter to the House of Representatives, Tinubu requested that the 2022 Supplementary Appropriations Act be amended to allocate N500 billion for funding palliative measures against the impact of fuel subsidy removal. He proposed extracting this amount from the N819,536,937,813 supplementary budget.
It is worth noting that the previous president, Muhammadu Buhari, introduced the supplementary budget in 2022 to address the impact of floods on farmlands and road infrastructure.
In a further effort to improve the living conditions of impoverished Nigerians affected by the hardships of poverty, President Tinubu also sent a letter to federal lawmakers seeking Senate approval for an $800 million palliative loan from the World Bank.
Tinubu clarified that the purpose of this facility is to expand the coverage of shock-responsive safety net support for vulnerable Nigerians and to address the cost of meeting basic needs. Under the conditional cash transfer window of the program, the Federal Government of Nigeria intends to transfer N8,000 per month to 12 million poor and low-income households for a duration of six months, benefiting approximately 60 million individuals.
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