The Senate has passed the 2019 Appropriation Bill of N8.916 trillion.
This figure is N86 billion higher than the proposal of N8.83 trillion presented by PresidentMuhammadu Buhari to the National Assembly for the 2019 fiscal year.
The passage of the budget has been stagnated owing to the non-appearance of Ministries, Departments and Agencies before the Senate committees and the absence of Chairman on Appropriation Committee and his deputy on another occasion.
The bill was passed by the senators during plenary on Tuesday, April 30 after considering the report of the Senate Committee on Appropriations on the 2019 Appropriation Bill presented by Senator Danjuma Goje.
A breakdown of the budget estimate reveals that statutory transfer is N502.58 billion, N2.25 trillion is for debt servicing, recurrent expenditure gets N4.65 trillion, and N2.94 trillion is earmarked for capital expenditure.
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Following the consideration of the report submitted by Senator Goje, the lawmakers resolved to approve the total sum of the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
They also adopted the recommendation of the Appropriations Committee which proposed that N10 billion be added to the service-wide votes to support the victims of crises in Zamfara State.
Thereafter, the Senate dissolved into the Committee of Supply for the consideration of the 2019 Appropriation Bill
The bill was then read the third time and passed by the lawmakers.
The Senate President, Bukola Saraki commended his colleagues for their efforts towards ensuring the passage of the bill whilst imploring the Executive for its complete implementation.
He said, “I want to thank our colleagues, particularly for their understanding and for us to be able to meet today’s deadline in passing the bill and (I) thank the Committee on Appropriation too.”
“I hope that with this budget passed, the Executive will also ensure the full implementation of the budget for the benefit of Nigerians as a whole
