The National Assembly To Pass 2016 Budget March 17....

The upper and lower chamber (Senate, House of Representative) would on March 17 pass the 2016 Appropriation Bill presented to by President Muhammdu Buhari on December 22, 2015. This was disclosed on Wednesday by the Joint Committees of the Senate and House of Representatives on Appropriations.

The committees stated that the final report on the appropriation bill would be laid on the floor of both chambers of the National Assembly on March 16 for consideration and subsequent passage the following day.

According to the chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriations, Senator Danjuma Goje, both committees would meet critical stakeholders, including the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun; Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udo Udoma; Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele; Accountant-General of the Federation; and Director, Budget Office of the Federation on Thursday.

Goje said, “Tomorrow (Thursday), we are going to have a discussion with the Minister of Budget and Planning, Minister of Finance, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Accountant-General of the Federation. “The same thing with the Senate; we are also going to engage these people. We are going to engage other ministers to ensure that as much as possible, we align this budget to satisfy the needs of Nigerians.

“We may not be 100 per cent right, but we will try to get it right because the basic thing is to ensure that we produce a budget that will translate into the betterment of the lives of Nigerians.”