Senate yesterday gave the assurance that it will finally pass the 2019 Appropriation Bill on Tuesday, April 30, 2019.
This is just as the Senate President, Bukola Saraki disclosed that the senate was not able to consider the report submitted to it since last Thursday because copies have not been made available to all Senators.
Senate Majority Leader, Ahmad Lawan (APC, Yobe) had earlier disclosed to his colleagues that chairman and vice chairman of the Appropriations Committee were absent.
But interjecting almost immediately, Saraki said: “The chairman (of the Appropriations Committee, Danjuma Goje) did speak to me that some of the members had not gotten printed copies of the details.
‘’I have directed the clerk to make sure that latest by Monday, we all have printed copies of the budget so that everybody can see the details of the budget. And by so doing, we can now pass it at the next legislative day.
‘’Because we don’t want to run into problems where we pass it without details and our colleagues will now comment on that”.
Although Saraki had earlier assured that the upper legislative chamber would pass the budget by April 16, 2019, it failed to do so as the budget report was not ready for presentation. The Appropriation bill as listed on Wednesday’s Order Paper of the Senate, was to have been given final consideration and approval in Plenary.
Final report on the budget estimates , was laid before the Senate by the chairman of its Appropriation Committee , Senator Danjuma Goje (APC Gombe Central) on Wednesday last week before the Upper Legislative Chamber embarked on one week Easter Break.
The N8.83trillion budget proposal as presented by President Buhari is anchored on key parameters such as $60 per barrel as oil price bench mark , 2.3 million barrel oil production per day and N305 per dollar exchange rate. Others are 3.01% GDP growth rate and 9.18% Inflation rate.
Critical components of the budget as proposed are recurrent expenditure N4.038trillion , capital expenditure N2.031trillion , Debt servicing N2.264trillion and N492.360billion for statutory transfers .
Source: Leadership