The 2016 appropriation bill has finally been assented to by president Muhammadu Buhari after weeks of buck passing and horse trading between the executive and the legislature.
In December 2015, the president made the budget presentation to a joint session of the national assembly. But as lawmakers sat down to examine the document and ask ministers to defend their sections of the budget, it was discovered that the document had been badly padded and inflated by a corrupt bureaucracy.
In April, the national assembly transmitted details of the budget to the president after it had passed the bill on March 23. But the president withheld his assent, citing “grey areas”.
Meetings were thereafter held between national assembly leaders and members of the executive led by the president and on Friday, May 6 2015, Nigerians can go to bed, rest assured that the fiscal year has commenced in their country.
The budget sums up to N6.06trn: N351bn for statutory transfers, N1.4trn for debt service, N2.6trn for recurrent expenditure, and N1.5trn as capital expenditure–as sent to the executive by the legislature.
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