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2019 Appropriation Bill Passes Second Reading At Senate

The Senate has passed the 2019 Appropriate Bill for second reading and has directed its committee on appropriation to conclude work on the budget in two weeks.


Bukola Saraki
Bukola Saraki

 

The Senate on Tuesday passed the 2019 Appropriate Bill for second reading.

Following the passage of the bill, it has now been sent to relevant Appropriation Subcommittees of the Senate for the budget defence and presentation by Ministers and other Heads of Ministries, Department and Agencies of the Federal Government.

Speaking at the end of the debate, Senate President Bukola Saraki, thanked his colleagues for participating, while also stating that there was a need for the nation to continue to plug the leakages from the independent revenue sources.

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He said: “The most important issue now is for us to see how we can complete the process.

“I want to make a strong appeal to all members of the Subcommittees on Appropriation to ensure that you all immediately start receiving presentations.

“At the same time, all Ministers, Heads of Agencies and Departments should ensure that they promptly attend the budget presentations when they are called in — so that there will be no delays coming from them.

“Ministers and Heads of MDAs should know that this is not the time to travel. This is the time to be around.

“Because of the short timeframe, Distinguished Senators should let us know of any MDA that you have called for presentations who have not attended for one reason or the other, so that this can be done by the 2nd of April when we hope to consider the final report by the Appropriation Committee”.

The budget totalling, N8,826,636,578,915 has a recurrent expenditure of N4 trillion, while N2 trillion goes for capital expenditure with N2.2 trillion and N492 billion for debt servicing and statutory transfers respectively.