Senate shifts passage of 2023 budget to Dec. 28

The Senate on Thursday suspended the passage of the 2023 budget, including the Finance Bill, shifting the legislation to December 28th, 2022.

The President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, on Thursday, explained that the Senate is postponing the budget passage because of some challenges in receiving the report on the 2023 budget from the appropriations committee.

According to Lawan, the reason for this is that the appropriations bill came to the National Assembly from the executive with some problems and when the committee came to reconcile the figures, the challenge became obvious and difficult to deal with. He said that the Senate Appropriations Committee kickstarted a process of cleaning up the 2023 budget first and they engaged the executive in the cleanup exercise. Lawan noted that the process was concluded on Wednesday, December 21st and the Committee couldn’t conclude putting together the report for submission on Thursday.