After about two weeks of speculations about when President Muhammadu Buhari will sign the 2018 Appropriation Bill, the President today signed the N9.12 trillion bill into law.
The National Assembly had raised the initial N8.6 trillion estimates proposed by the Executive and laid before the joint session of the Legislature by the President on November 7, 2017 to N9.12 trillion when the bill was finally passed.
Worried by the structural changes effected by the National Assembly to some of the provisions for critical projects, the President hinted of plans to send a supplementary budget to the Legislature soon.
Specifically, President Buhari frowned at major reductions amounting to N347 billion in the allocations to 4,700 projects submitted to lawmakers for consideration which were replaced by 6,403 projects, with the cost totalling N578 billion.
The President posted on his verified Twitter handle, @MBuhari, saying: “I am however concerned about some of the changes @nassnigeria has made to the budget proposals I presented.
“The logic behind the Constitutional direction that budgets should be proposed by the Executive is that, it is the Executive that knows & defines its policies & projects.
“Unfortunately, that has not been given much regard in what has been sent to me. The National Assembly made cuts amounting to N347 billion in the allocations to 4,700 projects submitted to them for consideration and introduced 6,403 projects of their own amounting to N578 billion.
“As it is, some of these projects relate to matters that are the responsibility of the states and local governments, and for which the Federal Government should therefore not be unduly burdened”, the President added.
