Reps Increase Buhari's Request for Amnesty, NYSC, Others to N208bn

Without any debate for or against it, the House of Representatives has raised Pres­ident Muhammadu Buhari’s request for N180 billion to fund the Amnesty Pro­gramme, the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and others from N180billion to N208 billion.
President Buhari had asked the National Assem­bly to allow him take N180 billion from the N500 bil­lion allocated to federal gov­ernment’s Social Interven­tion Programme in the 2016 Budget to address pressing issues, but the Lower House on Wednesday increased it to N208.821billion.

In what shocked watch­ers of the National Assem­bly proceedings, the House passed it without debating the proposal and laying the report for consideration be­fore the Committee of the Whole House.
They were also surprised that the House passed the virement above what Buhari requested.
The House had listed the item as a motion in the name of the House Ap­propriation Committee Chairman, Hon Mustapha Bala Dawaki (APC-Kano), which was unanimously en­dorsed by the lawmakers.
When the House first re­ceived and read the docu­ment on October 25, 2016, it kept it for weeks until an interface between the Na­tional Assembly leadership and the Presidency before it was presented and referred on November 16, 2016.
The breakdown of the virement passed by the House showed that re­current expenditure for Public Service Wage Ad­justment (PSWA) under Services Wide Vote took N71.8billion; Contingency (N1.2billion), Margin for Increase in Cost (MIC) - N2billion, and Ministry of Interior Cadet Feeding in Police Academy Wudil, Kano (N932.4million).
Others under the same Service Wide Vote are Amnesty Programme (N35billion), internal op­erations of the armed forces (N5.205billion, Operation Lafiya Dole (N13.933billion, NYSC under the Ministry of Sports and Youth Devel­opment (N19.792billion) and Foreign Missions (N16.349billion).
The Augmentation of Meal Subsidy/Direct Teach­ing and Lab Cost under the Federal Ministry of Edu­cation received N900mil­lion with a sub total of N167.113billion.
Under Statutory Trans­fer, the Public Complaints Commission got N2.5billion bringing the Special Inter­vention (Recurrent) sub-total to N169.61billion.
Under capital expendi­ture, the Nigerian Air Force under the Ministry of De­fence got N12.708 billion.
The Presidential Initiative for the North East under Capital Supplementation was allocated N1.5billion, payment of local contrac­tors’ debts and other liabili­ties, N25billion, bringing the sub-total of the Special Intervention (capital) to N39.208 billion and a grand total of N208.8billion.