A supplementary estimate of Rs. 17,213 million is due to be presented to Parliament today to fund assistance for the public with electricity bills, with approval expected when the House takes it up tomorrow.
The decision was taken at a meeting of the Committee on Parliamentary Business chaired by the Deputy Speaker, NewsFirst reported.
The government does not intend to raise new money for the package. The funds are to be found by moving allocations already granted to ministries for 2026 that those ministries are not expected to spend before the end of the year. On that basis the transfer would not lift the overall spending ceiling approved under the Appropriation Act, nor raise the government’s maximum borrowing limit.
What the relief will look like in practice — who qualifies, how it is applied to bills, and whether it is a one-off or a recurring measure — has not been set out in the announcements of the parliamentary agenda.
Other business rescheduled
To make room for the estimate, the second reading debate on the Promotion of Export Agriculture (Amendment) Bill, originally listed for today, has been put back. Parliament has also decided not to proceed with the bill to establish an institute of chartered media practitioners, which had been down for a second reading debate this week.
The estimate lands in a week already crowded with constitutional business. The Supreme Court’s determination on the 22nd Amendment has reached the Speaker, who is expected to announce it in the House today. The second reading debate on the 22nd Amendment and the Judicature (Amendment) Bill is scheduled for Thursday and Friday, 24 and 25 September, sitting from 11.30 a.m. to 7.00 p.m. on both days.
Electricity tariffs and the cost of supply have been among the most politically sensitive economic questions of the past two years, and the estimate is the government’s most direct budgetary intervention on household bills so far this financial year.
