TVC E, NEWS – The week long controversies that have trailed the 2016 Appropriation bill were on Wednesday laid to rest following the passage of the fiscal document by the country’s federal parliament.
Although the 2016 Appropriation Bill has been passed, the Senate reduced the budget size from the initial N6.077trn presented to the federal parliament by President Muhammadu Buhari on December 23, 2015, to N6.060trn, a difference of N17bn.
The breakdown of the budget as passed by the federal lawmakers showed that the sum of N1.587trn and N2.646.3trn.were approved as capital expenditure and recurrent expenditure respectively.
They also approved N351.37bn as Statutory transfers, N1.475.3trn for Debt Service, and N2.2trn for Fiscal deficit.
The federal parliamentarians also adopted the oil benchmark of $38; Crude production of 2.2000m barrel per day and the exchange rate of N197 to $1 for the implementation of the budget.
Explaining how the difference of N17bn was identified, Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Danjuma Goje, admitted that the 2016 budget proposal contained a number of errors of omissions, particularly in the area of personnel cost.
He said his committee therefore filled some of the gaps which could still raise serious concerns in the course of the year because there were many outstanding cases.
Speaking after the formal passage of the appropriation bill, Senate President, Bukola Saraki, explained that his colleagues had done their part and requested the president to do the needful by signing it to law for immediate implementation.
