The passage of the 2017 budget earlier slated for March 8 may no longer be possible following extension of budget defence by the Senate, Daily Trust can report.
Principal Officers of the Senate led by Senate President Bukola Saraki yesterday held a closed door meeting with chairmen of the Senate standing committees.
It was gathered that at the meeting which lasted over an hour, senators resolved to extend budget defence to next week.
The Senate had on January 26th suspended plenary to enable Ministers and heads of agencies defend their budget. The budget defence was supposed to end yesterday.
Senators who attended the meeting said only few committees have concluded their budget defence with MDAs.
One of them said they have observed a lot of inconsistencies in the budget.
“About 60 committees are yet to conclude their work on the budget because many MDAs are yet to provide details on their budget. For example, there is no detail on the N500billion social intervention funds. We don’t have the breakdown,” a senator said.
In an interview with newsmen at the end of the meeting, Senator Dino Melaye (APC, Kogi) said they have resolved to remove all the frivolous items in the budget.
Our correspondent gathered that Saraki at the meeting urged the committee chairmen to engage the Ministers and heads of MDAs to address the issues observed in the budget.
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