Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari will sign the 2023 Appropriation Bill on Tuesday, January 3rd 2023.
This was disclosed by Senate President Ahmad Lawan while speaking to State House correspondents on Friday after a closed-door meeting with Buhari at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
Recall that earlier this week, the Senate approved the passage of the N21.8 trillion 2023 budget.
Presidential assent expected: Lawan said the Senate is looking forward to the signing of the 2023 Appropriation Bill, which is expected to be on Tuesday.
- ”We are looking forward to Mr President signing the Appropriation Bill 2023, by the grace of God, on Tuesday.
- “This is because we signed the document yesterday (Thursday), having lost some time because of some anomalous figures we had in the bill presented to the National Assembly (NASS).
- “But thank God, the NASS in both chambers have passed the Appropriation Bill 2023 on Wednesday, and I’m sure that Mr President and his team, on the executive side, will work on what we have done.
- ”And the first thing on Tuesday, the first official working day of the year, I believe that Mr President will be signing the Appropriation Bill 2023.”
Late Passage of budget: The Senate President explained that the reason the being would be signed on a later date is due to an “anomalous, very undesirable and unfortunate situation” which caused a delay.
- “We are very pleased that we have been able to, in the last four years, ensure the passage of the appropriation bills in record time before every Christmas, and Mr President had always signed before the end of the year.
- “This year, particularly, is because of the anomalous, very undesirable and unfortunate situation that we had to delay a little bit.
- “You will recall that the NASS had to cut down its Christmas recess to come back on Wednesday for the sole purpose of passing the appropriation bill which we could have passed a week before. So all the same, there’s nothing that we missed”.
Committed to Election success: Lawan added lawmakers are ready to provide INEC’s needs to make the upcoming General election a success.
- “We also discussed the 2023 general elections. The current NASS has always supported the executive in terms of ensuring that INEC gets whatever is necessary for it to work to ensure that elections are supported and that INEC doesn’t lack in anything.
- “So we have committed ourselves to ensure that we give INEC whatever it needs for it to conduct a very free, transparent and credible 2023 general elections.
- “But before then, whatever INEC needs for 2023 to be a success, we will surely and certainly provide such support”.
What you should know: The Nigerian Senate approved Nigeria’s N21.8 trillion 2023 Appropriation Bill, earlier this week. The Lawmakers also urged the Executive arm of government to implement the 2022 Appropriations Act.
Nairametrics also gathered that the country’s crude oil production for 2023 has been pegged at 1.69 million barrels per day and also increased its crude oil benchmark to $75 per barrel from the previous $70 per barrel.
The Federal Government believes that with these benchmarks, the country will be able to fund the 2023 budget.
