The 2016 revised budget will be passed in on March 17, according to lawmakers who disclosed this on Wednesday.
The controversial 2016 Budget of N6.07 trillion received a lot of public outcry after it was presented by President Muhammadu Buhari last December. Nigerians who poured through the budget saw figures beyond human comprehension. The budget was postponed last month because the ministers could not agree on revised public spending plans.
In order to resolve the issue, Senators and Members of the House of Representatives, said they had discussions with ministries on the issue of how to allocate money to the different departments.
Representatives of the Senate, the upper house, and their counterparts in the lower house, the House of Representatives, said they had held talks with ministries on the issue of how much money would be allocated to each department.
“We should be able to lay our report of the 2016 Appropriation Bill before the House and the Senate on 16th of March,” Abdulmumin Jibrin, who chairs the budget committee in the lower house.
He said parliament was expected to finish considering the budget’s contents by the end of the following day. “So it is safe for us to conclude that the 2016 Appropriation Bill will be passed on the 17th of March,” he added.
One of the reasons for the withdrawal of the budget by President Muhammadu Buhari was to make changes due to a further fall in oil prices which increased the deficit to 3 trillion Naira. The Federal Government has also sought loans from the African Development Bank and China Exim Bank to plug the holes in the budget gap.
Nigeria has held talks with the World Bank and has looked at borrowing from the African Development Bank and China Exim Bank to plug the budget gap as oil trades around $30 a barrel, down from over $100 in
Read More in REUTERS
