President Muhammadu Buhari will receive the clean copy of the 2016 budget today (Monday), the Presidency has revealed.
This is just as the President is expected to sign the 2016 appropriation bill into law this week.
Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Ita Enang said that the document would be transmitted from the National Assembly to the Executive on Monday.
He pointed out that members of the appropriation committees in both legislative chambers were working to ensure expeditious passage of the document to meet the yearnings of Nigerians.
“We have not received it (the budget) yet. I cannot also say today (Sunday) but definitely tomorrow (Monday), the budget will be received. They are working on it. Everybody is anxiously waiting,” Enang told BusinessDay at about 6:34pm on Sunday.
Information minister, Lai Mohammed, had disclosed that there would be increased activities in ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) once the budget was passed.
President Buhari, who received the 2016 budget, passed by the National Assembly few weeks ago, declined to give assent to it, claiming it was distorted by the legislators. He later returned the document to the Assembly, saying some grey areas needed to be reviewed.
Some of the capital projects affected include the N60 billion Lagos-Calabar rail project, which was removed by lawmakers; reduction of Lagos-Ibadan Expressway by N24 billion; reduction of Second Niger Bridge by N3.9 billion; Benin-Sagamu Road slashed by N800 million; Kano-Maiduguri-Ngala Rail cut by N260 million, among others.
Last Tuesday, he held a closed-door meeting with the leadership of the National Assembly to resolve the impasse.
Consequently, a committee drawn from the Executive and the National Assembly was formed to review the document, which has been plagued by “padding, inconsistencies and errors.”
