Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari, on Monday sought the approval of the National Assembly for virement of funds appropriated for special intervention to be used to fund some recurrent and capital items.

He is seeking a total of 180 billion Naira to cover the shortfalls in recurrent and capital expenditure.

In the letter read on the floor of the Senate and House of Representatives Chambers, President Buhari says the request is necessary because of the shortfalls in provisions for personnel costs and inadequate provision for the Amnesty Programme.

President Buhari also stated that the fund virement was needed to cover for the inadequacies in the National Youth Service Corps budget where an additional 8.5 billion Naira is required to cover the backlog of 129,469 corps members who are currently due for call up but would otherwise be left out till next year due to funding constraints.

In the letter read by the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, who presided over the plenary on Tuesday, President Buhari said the Special Intervention Fund would also fund Service Wide Votes for Police Academy, Operation Lafiya Dole, Subsidy, Nigerian Air Force and the Presidential Initiative on North East, among others.

The National Assembly is expected to deliberate on the letter in the coming days.

The House of Representatives had in June demanded the framework and details of the 500 billion Naira Social Intervention Fund.

Legislators directed a joint committee to ensure that the Senior Special Assistant to the Vice President on Social Protection Programmes makes available the framework.

The motion had resulted to a heated debate among lawmakers.

While some members supported the bill and sought that the Federal Government stop further disbursements of the fund, other lawmakers however opposed calls for the programme to be stopped.

•Text courtesy of Channels TV. Photo shows President Buhari.

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