Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari has received the 2018 appropriation bill from the national assembly seven months after it was presented to the legislature for appropriation.
This was confirmed by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Senator Ita Enang.
Enang, in a statement, said, “I have this evening received the 2018 appropriations bill for onward transmission to the President as soon as possible”.
Senate President Bukola Saraki had told journalists on Thursday night in the State House that the budget would unfailingly be transmitted to the President yesterday.
He said one week delay in transmitting the budget after it was passed on May 17, was caused by the necessity to harmonise both versions of the Appropriation Bill by both chambers of the National Assembly.
“I think that should have been done. We had to harmonise. It’s just a slight difference. It had been passed yesterday (Wednesday). It was in the rules and proceedings of today (yesterday).”
So, I am sure by tomorrow (today), we will transmit it to the Presidency,” Saraki had said.
Budget Analysis
The N9.1 trillion budget passed by the National Assembly on May 17 consists of N3.5 trillion as recurrent (non-debt) expenditure and N2.8 trillion capital expenditure.
The budget is N500 billion higher than the N8.6 trillion proposal presented to the National Assembly by Buhari in November 2017.
The National Assembly also increased the oil benchmark proposed by the executive from $45 to $51 per barrel but retained oil production volume proposal at 2.3 million barrels per day and exchange rate at N305 to $1.
The budget as passed by the federal legislature also comprised N530,421,368,624 as statutory transfer;N2,203,835,365,699 for debt service; N1,954,464,993,775 as fiscal deficit which implies 1.73 percent deficit to gross domestic product (GDP).
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