THUR, JUN 11 2020-theG&BJournal- The Senate today passed the 2020 Appropriation Act (Amendment) Bill of N10,810,544,664,642 into law after the lawmakers voted to increase the budget by N300 billion.
The House of Representatives Wednesday also gave consent to the Bill and approved the borrowing request made earlier to the National Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The Bill was passed at plenary after clause by clause considerations.
In passing the Bill Senator Basiru Ajibola said, “contrary to insinuations that the Senate just takes hook, line and sinker, what is brought by the executive, the Senate has brought back items that are people oriented in the budget,’’ this is in apparent reference to the issue that delayed the consideration of the Bill on Tuesday.
The Senate Tuesday deferred action on the budget citing inefficiency on the part of the executive arm of government and the failure of the Presidency to capture N186 billion intended as allocation for the Health sector as part of the N500 billion COVID-19 intervention in the revised budget.
The Chairman of the Senate Appropriation Committee Jibrin Barau (APC Kano North) noted the omission and quickly alerted the Senators. He said in his presentation that while N314 billion was captured, as part of the intervention, the balance of N186 billion was left out. He demanded the omission must be corrected.
The Senate President Ahmad Lawan came short of calling the Finance Minister whose Ministry is responsible for the omission as ‘’inefficient’’ when he said the National Assembly will no longer tolerate inefficiencies from persons responsible for preparing and submitting budget estimates.
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