National Assembly Passes 2016 Budget

The Nigerian Senate has passed the long awaited 2016 Budget submitted by President Muhammadu Buhari in December. 


The 2016 Budget of 6,060,677,358,277 Naira was on Wednesday, reduced by 17,002,641,773 Naira.

 While presenting a report, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriation, Danjuma Goje, said the budget was filled with controversy.

 Mr Goje maintained that there were many lapses in the budget and in the bid for the Senate to clear up the lapses, the issues would 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.

In its report, the Committee set recurrent expenditure at 2.6 trillion Naira, capital expenditure at 1.5 trillion Naira and fiscal deficit at 2.2 trillion Naira.

 It observed that the executive presented the budget late to the National Assembly and this had subsequently delayed the passage.

The Committee also noted that the budget, as presented by the executive, was fraught with inconsistencies, as some Ministers disowned their budgets.

It also recommended that going forward, the Budget Office must work with Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in preparing the budget to avoid the problem of inadequate revenue for MDAs.

The journey to the passage of the 2016 budget has been contentious and fraught with acrimony.