The House of Representatives today promised to pass the 2018 Appropriation Bill of N9.12trn tomorrow. May 15th.
The Deputy Speaker of the House, Yusuf Lasun, who presided at today’s plenary, made the promise following the budget report presentation to the House by the Chairman, Committee on Appropriation, Hon. Mustapha Dawaki.
The N9.12 trillion budget is N410 billion higher than the N8.61trillion Appropriation Bill laid before the joint session of the National Assembly by President Buhari on 7th November last year.
The lawmaker advised members to pick copies of the budget from the appropriation committee for proper study before the proposed passage of the Bill on Wednesday.
It would be recalled that over the past six months, the deliberations on the Bill had sparked series of controversies following allegations by the National Assembly that Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) failed to defend their budget proposals.
Worried by the Executive-Legislature face off over the Bill which should have been passed early this year based on provisions of Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), President Buhari directed heads of all MDAs to defend their budgets unfailingly.
According to the revised Appropriation Bill’s provisions, N530.4 billion is proposed for statutory transfers, N2.20 trillion for debt service and N199 billion for sinking fund for maturing loans.
Also, N3.51 trillion is allocated to recurrent (non-debt) expenditures, while N2.87 trillion is proposed for capital expenditure.
