Barely 24 hours after the Executive accused the Legislature of delaying the 2019 Appropriation Bill, President Muhammadu Buhari has communicated his intention to present the Bill to the joint session of the National Assembly next Wednesday.
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, read the President’s letter on Thursday at the plenary of the lower chamber.
The lawmakers condemned the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udo Udoma, for blaming the delay in the presentation of the budget on the National Assembly.
Udoma blamed the National Assembly for the delay in presentation of the 2019 Appropriation Bill after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting on Wednesday.
It would be recalled that the FEC had on 24th October approved the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) for the 2019 -2021 to provide template for the 2019 budget.
The Council approved a budget estimate of N8.73 trillion for the 2019 budget, representing about N400 billion lower than the current year’s budget.
The minister had last month announced that the Federal Government was considering a 2019 budget of N8.6 trillion, indicating about N500 billion lower than the N9.1 trillion approved by lawmakers for 2018.
