National Assembly passes 2016 budget today

 

UPDATE:

Breaking News: Senate Finally passes 2016 Budget

The Senate on Wednesday passed the 2016 Appropriation budget of N6.06 trillion.
But this came with a complaint by the Senate Committee on Appropriation about the omission of some agencies from the budget.
However, the Chairman of the Committee on Appropriation, Senator Danjuma Goje, said the service wide votes will take care of the omission of workers’ salary in the 2016 budget.
Goje explained that the budget has already been harmonised by both chambers before presenting it.

After postponing the laying of the N6.08 trillion 2016 Appropriation Bill for three consecutive times, both chambers of the Senate and House of Representatives yesterday received the final report of its joint committees on appropriation and finance, preparatory to the passage of the bill.

It is expected that the National Assembly will pass the bill today, before proceeding on a short Easter break. The passage of the 2016 budget has been postponed on several occasions as a result of ”padding” and other irregularities detected by the lawmakers in the bill submitted by President Muhammadu Buhari on December 22, 2015. President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, yesterday declared that the 2016 budget would be passed before Friday. Saraki made the declaration on his twitter handle. “The budget will be laid today (yesterday) for deliberation on amendments that were done and we will pass it before the end of the week.

“The #Budget2016 wasn’t sent to us just for the sake of it. It is our duty to make sure it is realistic and implementable. “…With this, the Senate intends to concentrate on the budget and to pass it before the end of the week,” he said in a tweet. In the Senate, the 2016 Appropriation Bill was laid by the Chairman, Committee on Appropriation, Danjuma Goje (APC, Gombe Central). The Senate received the report of the Conference Committee on the 2016, 2017 and 2018 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP). The Conference Committee report on MTEF was presented by the chairman, Senate Committee on Finance, Senator John Enoh (PDP, Cross River Central).

After receiving the three reports, the Senate resolved to stand down other items in the Order Paper and adjourned till today, in honour of a member of the House of Representatives representing Nasarawa/ Toto Federal Constituency of Nasarawa State, Hon. Musa Baba Onwana, who died last week. In the House, Speaker Yakubu Dogara said the House received the 2016 appropriation “because of overriding national interest.”

He said: “Today is really a sad day for us, but because of the overriding interest of the country, which of course is the budget, we will take only one item and we adjourn sitting till tomorrow (Wednesday).” Shortly after receiving the report, the House adjourned in honour of Hon. Musa Baba Onwana, who died on Thursday, March 17. Until his death, Onwana represented Nasarawa/ Toto Federal Constituency of Nasarawa State on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The budget report, which was laid on the floor by the chairman of the appropriation committee, Hon. Abdulmumin Jibrin (APC, Kano) read: “That the House do receive the Report of the Committees on Appropriations and Finance on a Bill for an Act to authorise the issue from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation, the total sum of N6,077,680,000,000 only, of which, N351,370,000,000 only is for Statutory Transfers; Nl,475,320,000 only is for Debt Service; N2,648,600,000,000 only is for Recurrent (Non-Debt) Expenditure, while the sum of Nl,845,540,000,000 inclusive of N157,150,000,000 is for Statutory Transfers and N86,000,000,000 as Interest on Capitalised Loans, is for contribution to the Development Fund for Capital Expenditure for the Year Ending on the 31st.” Before passing the budget today, the House is expected to pass the 2016-2018 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), whose report was also received yesterday.

The preamble to the MTEF report presented by the chairman of the committee on finance, Hon. Babangida Ibrahim (APC, Katsina) states that: “The House notes that the 2016-2018 MTEF and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) of the Federal Government of Nigeria was passed by the House on Thursday, December 17, 2015 and transmitted to the Senate for concurrence. “The Senate passed same with some differences; The two chambers met in conference and adopted a harmonized version of the report. A clean copy of the conference report is ready for receipt and adoption.”

New Telegraph