For the second time within 10 days, the Senate Committee on Appropriation on Thursday failed to lay the report of the 2019 Appropriation Bill, with budgetary proposal totalling N8.83 trillion, before the Senate in plenary.
Findings indicated that the laying of the report was neither listed on the Order Paper for day, nor was it mentioned by the legislators amongst the issues to be deliberated upon at plenary.
It would be recalled that the Senate had on April 2, given the committee between April 9 and 11, to lay the report for possible deliberations preparatory to the scheduled passage of the Bill on Tuesday, April 16.
The April 11 deadline was given when the committee failed to lay the report on April 2.
Adducing reasons for the committee’s default then, the committee’s Vice Chairman, Sen. Sonni Ogbuoji, had said that less than 10 committees out of over 60 committees had submitted their budget reports to it for consideration.
The lawmaker therefore pleaded for an extension of the deadline to April 11. By the expiration of the new deadline, the committee was unable to fulfil its promise, thereby making the April 16 set for the passage of the Bill seemingly unrealistic.
