National Assembly Set To Pass 2016 Budget

The National Assembly in Nigeria is set to pass the nation’s 2016 budget on Thursday, March 17, a lawmaker said on Wednesday.

While giving an update on the budget, the Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, Honourable Abdulmumin Jibrin, said the lawmakers had put in much effort to ensure that the budget would be ready before the new date.

On February 15, the House of Representatives said it was working towards passing the 2016 budget in the second week of March.

Honourable Jibrin gave the proposed period at a budget defense session in the National Assembly.

Also giving an update on the budget before the Senate, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senate Mohammed Goje, told reporters that the National Assembly would still meet with the Executive to finalise the process before the budget would be passed.

For weeks now, the National Assembly has been meeting with Ministries, Departments, and Agencies, working on the 2016 budget estimates.

Their interaction revealed a lot of concerns in the budget submitted to the National Assembly in December 2015 and made impossible an earlier plan by the lawmakers to have the budget passed by February 25.

But will one day be enough for the lawmakers to consider the details of the budget and pass it? Honourable Jibrin believes the time is enough.

The new date for the passage of the budget is just two weeks away and Nigerians will hope that this is one date the legislature will keep.