The National Assembly will, on Thursday, May 2, 2019, transmit the N8.916 trillion budget, recently passed by the lawmakers, to President Muhammmadu Buhari for his assent.
Chairman, House Committee on Appropriations, Mustapha Dawaki (APC, Kano), disclosed this to newsmen in Abuja on Tuesday.
Dawaki added that the 2019 budget encountered minor delays because many ministers and heads of agencies failed to defend their proposals in good time.
“As you know, we have passed the 2019 budget of N8.916 trillion today, which will be transmitted to President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday, May 2, for his assent.
“The President laid the 2019 budget of N8.83 trillion on 18 December, 2018, which was thereafter referred to both chambers of the National Assembly.
“We were told to pass the budget by end of March but we couldn’t do that because Ministers and head of agencies were not coming forward to defend their proposals,” the lawmaker claimed.
He said the sum of N10 billion, which was sourced from the Service Wide Votes, to curb bandits attacks in Zamfara State, was added to the aggregate budget.
According to him, that led to an increase of the total budget sum from an initial N8.906 trillion to N8.916 trillion.
