The Nigerian Senate has passed the
2016 budget
It was passed despite the lapses and controversy trailing the
budget
The Senate reduced the total budget sum from N6.07trn to N6.06trn The
Senate on Wednesday, March 23, finally passed the long awaited 2016 budget
submitted by President Muhammadu Buhari. The 2016 Budget of N6,060,677,358,277
was reduced by N17,002,641,773. While presenting a report, Danjuma Goje, the
chairman senate committee on appropriation said the budget was filled with
controversy. He added that there were many lapses in the budget and in the bid
for the Senate to clear up the issues will add more problems. He said if the
Senate insisted on clearing up the lapses, the committee would not have been
able to meet up with the deadline of submission.
“This budget is full of controversy and we did not
want to have more controversy or else it won’t have been presented today and
the National Assembly would be blamed. “The people would not understand it
because people are even saying that we are playing politics,” he said. However,
Ike Ekweremadu, the deputy Senate president while making contributions
commended the committee and also urged for the lapses to be addressed. On
Tuesday, December 22, 2015,
President Muhammadu Buhari laid before a joint sitting of the
National Assembly the 2016 appropriation bill. The bill contained the estimates
of revenue and expenditure of the federation for the 2016 fiscal year in the
aggregate sum of six trillion. The Senate debated the bill on January 20, 21,
26 and 27 respectively. The bill was read a second time on January 27, and
consequently referred to the committee on appropriations for further
legislative actions. In preparing details of the bill, the committee adopted a benchmark
price of 38 dollars per barrel on crude oil based on the Medium Term
Expenditure framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP). The executive
proposals of crude oil production of 2.2 million barrels per day and an
exchange rate of 197 naira to one dollar was adopted. After which the highlight
of the bill as recommended by the committee was an aggregate
expenditure of 6.06trillion naira.
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