Buhari to sign 2019 budget today

President Muhammadu Buhari will on today sign the 2019 appropriation bill into law. With the signing, it will signal the beginning of the implementation of the 2019 fiscal calendar.

The Senior Special Assistant to the president on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, revealed this during an interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily.

“He is signing at 11 o’clock this morning,” he said when asked if the President will still sign the budget today.

“Given the experiences that we have had sadly budget padding, the proposals have gone as pigs and come out as sausages.

“So there are questions to be asked. Is this what you want? Is this what you got? And of course, you have to give up some parts because the parliament is not a rubber stamp parliament.

“They will somehow get some things changed here and there but there must be that consensus that yes, this is a budget that is operatable,” he stated.

This comes three weeks after the House of Representatives passed the 2019 budget and thereafter sent a clean copy to the President for assent.

The N8.916 trillion budget is N86 billion higher than the proposal of N8.83 trillion presented by President Muhammadu Buhari to the National Assembly for the 2019 fiscal year.

Earlier, the Senate passed the bill during plenary after considering the report of the Senate Committee on Appropriations on the 2019 Appropriation Bill presented by Senator Danjuma Goje.

Buhari had proposed a budget of N8.83 trillion to the National Assembly on December 18, 2018 but the passage was delayed due to events such as the Christmas and New Year breaks as well as the general election.

However, after undergoing legislative scrutiny, the lawmakers passed the budget of N8.91 trillion, raising it by over N90.3 billion on April 30.

The highlights of the 2019 budget as approved by the National Assembly include the capital expenditure of N2.09 trillion, recurrent expenditure of N4.05 trillion, statutory transfers of N502 billion, fiscal deficit of N1.9 trillion, and special intervention of N500 billion.

The lawmakers also approved debt service of N2.25 trillion.

Of the figure, N1.7trillion was approved for domestic debts, while the sum of N433 billion was provided for foreign debts.

SOURCE: channelstv.com