The Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Benjamin Kalu, has revealed why the house passed the N500 billion requested by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

According to him, this will chiefly address the sufferings of Nigerians occasioned by the removal of fuel subsidy while also taking care of other infrastructural challenges the 2022 flood disaster brought nationwide.

Kalu spoke on the heels of the speedy consideration and approval of Tinubu’s request for N500 billion fuel subsidy palliatives in Thursday’s plenary.

The request seeks to amend the 2022 supplementary appropriation act to extract N500 billion from the budget.

The legislation was titled “A Bill for an Act to Authorize the issuance of the sum of (N500, 000, 000, 000.00) five hundred billion, Naira, only from the 2022 Supplementary Appropriations of (N819, 536, 937, 815.00) only for the provisions of palliatives to Nigerians to cushion the effect of fuel subsidy removal”.

Moving the motion for the bill to be read for the second time, the leader of the House, Professor Julius Ihonvbere (APC, Edo), said Nigerians have been waiting to hear from the parliament since the removal of the subsidy.

“In a situation where policies are taken leading to expected and unexpected consequences, government has to find means to address the challenges brought by the policy.

“With the president’s request for funds, Nigerians are waiting to hear from the parliament with so much expectations”, he said.