President Muhammadu Buhari is expected to receive the final document of the 2018 budget passed last week by the national Assembly before the end of this week. The House of Representatives had admitted that a clean copy of the 2018 budget will be on the table of within one week from the date of passage.
The National Assembly passed the N9.12 trillion budget on Wednesday, May 16, 2018, which presented to the legislature on November 7, 2017 by the President. Invariably, the Appropriation Bill was delayed for seven months before passage by the National Assembly.
The budget was increased with about N508 billion from the initial fiscal estimates of N8.612 trillion presented by President Buhari to the legislators on November 7, 2017.
It was gathered that Abdulrazak Namdas, Chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, disclosed the budget would be sent to the President on or before Wednesday.
The lawmakers was said to have noted that there was not much work left to be done to clean up the budget before the meeting of the Senate and House Conference Committees to harmonise the differences in the budget.
Namdas had observed that, “The areas of differences are just three, including the provision that the Executive should not spend any funds outside this budget without appropriation by the National Assembly.
“This was inserted to take care of extra-budgetary spending like fuel subsidy or what they call ‘under recovery.’ The Senate is not likely to oppose the provision. On all other areas like the total budget size of N9.12 trillion, we are on the same page. There is really nothing much to cause further delays.”
The Deputy Chairman, House Committee on Appropriation, Chris Azubuogu, was gathered to have remarked that “After the Senate and House meet in conference on Monday, the harmonised report will be adopted on Tuesday by both Chambers of the National Assembly, then, the budget will be ready for transmission to the President.”