The President Bola Tinubu-led Nigerian government has said it is no longer possible to remove “frivolous items” contained in the 2023 supplementary budget.
This was contained in a response given by the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation to the request made by Tracka, a private agency, asking the Nigerian Senate to remove frivolous items contained in the 2023 supplementary budget sent in by the Tinubu’s administration.
SaharaReporters earlier reported how Tinubu’s administration proposed to spend N5.095 billion on a presidential yacht and the sum of N1.5 billion to buy vehicles for the office of the First Lady, despite the prevailing poverty and economic hardship faced by the Nigerian citizens due to the government’s policies.
According to Tracka, a social platform for Nigerians who are interested in tracking budgets and public developmental projects in their community, the online petition was necessitated by the insensitive nature of Tinubu’s government to the current plights of the Nigerians.
The budget has scaled the second reading at the House of Representatives.
“The supplementary budget contained frivolous and illegal line items, which has sent the nation into an uproar, with claims that the FG is being insensitive to the plight of Nigerians by deciding to spend scarce resources on the purchase of yachts and vehicles, etc, when we should be cutting back on spending,” a statement attached to the online petition had read.
However, in a letter signed by S.O. Afolabi for the Secretary to The Government of the Federation and made available to the public by Tracka, the government argued that the removal of the “so-called frivolous items has been overtaken by events.”
The statement reads: “I am directed to acknowledge receipt of your letter Ref. No. TRK/FGP/SGF/001 dated 3rd November, 2023 on the above subject matter and inform you that the President has already assented to the 2023 Supplementary Appropriation Bill and as such the petition to review and remove the so-called frivolous items has been overtaken by events.”
We received the ‘response’ below, yesterday. 👀👀👀👀
👇👇👇 https://t.co/PiEoZhRqta pic.twitter.com/8XBDzb1Ad4
— Tracka (@TrackaNG) November 29, 2023
