Senate passes, reduces 2016 budget by N17bn

The Senate, on Wednesday, passed the 2016

Appropriation Bill and reduced the budget size from

the initial N6.077trn presented to the federal

parliament by President Muhammadu Buhari on

December 23, 2015, to N6.060trn, a difference of

N17bn.

The federal lawmakers approved the N1.587trn as

the capital expenditure portion of the budget and

the recurrent expenditure of N2.646.3trn.

They also approved N351.37bn as Statutory

transfers, N1.475.3trn for Debt Service, and N2.2trn

for Fiscal deficit.

The federal parliamentarians also adopted the oil

benchmark of $38; Crude production of 2.2000m

barrel per day and the exchange rate of N197 to $1

for the implementation of the budget.

Explaining how the difference of N17bn was

identified, Chairman, Senate Committee on

Appropriation, Senator Danjuma Goje, admitted that

the 2016 budget proposal contained a number of

errors of omissions, particularly in the area of

personnel cost.

He said his committee therefore filled some of the

gaps would could still raise serious concerns in the

course of the year because there were many

outstanding cases.

Senate President, Bukola Saraki, explained after the

formal passage of the appropriation bill that his

colleagues had done his part and requested the

president to do the needful by signing it to law for

immediate implementation.