2018 Budget Misses April 24th, As NASS Shifts Passage To Month End

The passage of the N8.612 trillion 2018 appropriation bill 2018 has suffered a setback as the National Assembly missed the April 24th target date earlier proposed as the National Assembly shifted the date to the end of the month.

It became evident that the Appropriation would suffer delay after a harmonised committee of both the House of Representatives and the Senate failed to meet on April 19, 2018, as earlier proposed to lay the budget ahead of its passage on April 24, 2018.

President Muhammadu Buhari had laid the document before a joint session of the two chambers of the National Assembly on November 7, 2017.

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, had on March 21, announced at plenary that both chambers had agreed to pass the budget on April 24. “The consideration and passage of the budget will be on April 24. The committees will submit their report on April 19” Dogara announced.

However, the presentation of the 2018 budget report by the joint appropriation committees could not hold on April 19 as planned. April 19, was the day, the Senate chambers was invaded by suspected hoodlums, who made away with the mace.

He said the House was working assiduously to have the budget passed latest by the end of the month, insisting that April 24 date was not sacrosanct. “I have always told you people that the budget will be passed at the end of the month.

And we have to lay the budget before it will be passed. “So, we are doing everything possible to see that it (budget) is passed at the end of the month. I can assure you we will pass the budget’, he assured.