Buhari
President
Muhammadu Buhari is set to sign this year’s budget today after
receiving the clean copy of the document yesterday, it was learnt.
The 2016 Appropriation Bill was
presented to the President last month after passage by the National
Assembly, but the President declined to assent it after discovering that
many key projects had been removed as some constituency projects were
added by the lawmakers.
The N6.08 trillion proposal was
presented by the President to the joint sitting of the National Assembly
on December 22, last year.
A source, who spoke on condition of anonymity yesterday, said all was ready for the President to assent the bill today.
He said: “All things being equal, the President will today assent the 2016 Appropriation Bill.”
“The two committees have finished their
work and a clean copy is now with the Presidency.” Earlier yesterday,
the chairman of the committee set up to reconcile the grey areas in the
document, Deputy House Speaker Yussuff Lasun, presented the clean copy
to President Buhari’s National Assembly Advisers – Ita Enang (Senate)
and Sumaila Kawu (House of Representatives).
The presentation was conducted behind closed doors.
The Deputy Chairman of the House
Committee on Media, Jonathan Gaza, told reporters yesterday: “Don’t
forget that we are also Nigerians and it is our desire for the country
to move forward. I am quite optimistic and I enjoin all other
Nigerians, including yourselves, to be as optimistic as me that in the
very near future, this budget will be signed into law.
“Well, I honestly believe that we have
to be quite careful with our choice of words; over time, there have been
differences and both arms of government sat down to look at what those
issues were.
“Most importantly, what we want is to
see our country and our economy moving forward. To this end, just as I
earlier stated and I want to reiterate, both sides of the divide are
working hard and the budget before long is going to be signed into law.”
The House adjourned plenary till May 12 to enable members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) attend their congresses.
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