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National Assembly may pass 2018 budget next month, says Dogara 

By Adamu Abuh and Azimazi Momoh Jimoh, Abuja
22 March 2018   |   4:28 am
Barring last minutes changes, the National Assembly would pass the 2018 budget on April 24, this year.

Speaker, House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara PHOTO: TWITTER/House of Representatives

Barring last minutes changes, the National Assembly would pass the 2018 budget on April 24, this year.

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Yakubu Dogara made this known yesterday at the start of the House proceedings.

Dogara further disclosed that committees of the House are expected to have turned in their reports on the 2018 appropriation bill by April 19.

The decision is coming less than a week after both Dogara and the Senate President Abubakar Bukola Saraki met behind closed doors with President Muhammadu Buhari at the presidential villa, Abuja.

Spokesperson of the House, Abdulrazak Namdas had blamed the non -implementation of the 2017 budget as well as the alleged refusal by heads of some ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to defend the 2018 budgetary proposals as reasons for the delay in the passage of the budget.

The N8.612 trillion 2018 budget is estimated to be 16 per cent higher than that of 2017. President Muhammadu Buhari presented the budget to the National Assembly on Friday, Nov 17, 2017.

The projected cumulative expenditure of N 8.612 trillion for 2018 will include recurrent costs of N3.494 trillion, debt service of N2.014 trillion, statutory transfers of about N456 billion, sinking fund of N220 billion (to retire maturing bond to local contractors), and capital expenditure of N2.428 trillion (excluding the capital component of statutory transfers).

Meanwhile, Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun, her Transportation colleague, Chibuike Amaechi, were among ten ministers indicted by the Senate yesterday for allegedly frustrating the early approval of the 2018 budget.

A document released by the Senate in Abuja, also listed agencies supervised by the Works, Power and Housing Minister, Babatunde Fashola, Science and Technology minister, Ogbonnaya Onu, Communications Minister, Adebayo Shittu among those frustrating the budget process.

The Senate, in the document, claimed that the listed heads of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), had failed to conclude their budget defences before the designated committees.

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