By Daniel Edu
The Senate has issued a warning to President Bola Tinubu regarding the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) initiative, cautioning him against any illegal spending and advising him to seek a supplementary budget for the project. The Senate’s Committee on Gas, led by Senator Jarigbe Jarigbe, urged the executive branch to promptly present a 2023 Supplementary Budget to the National Assembly to kickstart the Compressed Natural Gas project.
This request came shortly after President Tinubu announced measures to mitigate the impact of fuel subsidy removal on Nigerians. The senators emphasized that extra-budgetary spending would be against the law.
Senator Jarigbe, the committee’s chairman, commended Tinubu for the CNG initiative but warned against spending taxpayers’ money without approval from the National Assembly for various projects in the gas value chain.
The senators also advised against extra-budgetary expenditure through “Ways and Means,” stating that the legislature was ready to support and provide relief to the people. Jarigbe praised Tinubu’s CNG revolution for powering vehicles, noting that it would alleviate the hardship faced by citizens.
He stressed the need for a supplementary budget to fund the gas value chain, including CNG infrastructure and vehicles, as well as workshops and training for CNG adoption. Jarigbe emphasized that embarking on extra-budgetary expenditure would be inconsistent with the law.
Jarigbe expressed the Senate’s readiness to support Tinubu’s programs and suggested that a 2023 supplementary budget would be more appropriate than the “Ways and Means” approach used by the previous administration, which had been a contentious issue at the Central Bank of Nigeria.
In his Independence Day speech, President Tinubu had outlined plans to alleviate the hardships faced by Nigerians, including the deployment of cheaper and safer CNG buses across the nation, which would operate at a fraction of current fuel prices and positively impact transport fares. He also mentioned the establishment of training facilities and workshops to benefit transport operators and entrepreneurs.
