The federal lawmakers have commenced debate on Nigeria’s 2016 Appropriation Bill after putting behind the controversies surrounding the budget.
The debate session took place on Wednesday at both the upper and lower chambers of the National Assembly in Abuja, the nation’s capital.
‘Budget Of The People’
The lawmakers in the Senate had divided opinions on the financial plan, as some opposition lawmakers in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) questioned the financial capacity of the government to fund the budget considering the fall in oil prices and the deficit in the budget with an initial oil price benchmark of $38 per barrel.
However, some legislators from the ruling All Progressives Congress hailed the budget while describing it as a ‘budget of the people’.
In the meantime, the budget debate in the House of Representatives was approached with less passion, as it was kick started by the House’s majority leader.
The debate is coming after weeks of back and forth over the status and whereabouts of the budget presented by President Muhammadu Buhari.
In its comments about the budget, the opposition PDP said that the federal budget was a ‘big fraud and a grand plan to mortgage the future of Nigeria‘.
Controversies over the budget started after rumours spread that the budget had disappeared.
Few days after that rumour, the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, revealed that the Senior Special Assistant to the President on the Senate, Senator Ita Enag, reproduced a budget document different from what President Buhari originally submitted to the National Assembly.
He said that the Senate would only treat the document presented to the Senate by the President.
To end the controversy, the President wrote to the National Assembly making some alterations.
The President asked the lawmakers to work with the corrected version of the financial plan as his 2016 budget estimates.
Subsequently, the Senate accepted and adopted the alterations in the 2016 Appropriation Bill.
The total budgetary allocation for 2016 is 6.8 trillion Naira, an increase of one trillion Naira from the revised allocation of 5.9 trillion Naira for 2015.
In the breakdown, 2.648 trillion Naira was for recurrent expenditure while 1.85 trillion Naira was for capital expenditure and 1.475 trillion Naira for debt service.
The budget debate is expected to continue on Thursday January 21.
