Senate postpones 2019 budget passage

The Nigerian Senate Wednesday postponed the third reading of the 2019 Appropriation Bill till Tuesday.

The senate committee on appropriations on the national budget had last Wednesday laid its report on the 2019 Appropriation Bill.

The committee was billed for consideration at the plenary on Wednesday, however, the estimates was not available to all lawmakers yet, according to the senate president.

Hence, Bukola Saraki, the Senate President, directed that copies of the estimates to be made available to lawmakers by Monday, ahead of the passage of the budget on Tuesday.

He charged the National Assembly secretariat to ensure that senators get copies of the bill ahead of passage.

“Some members have not gotten printed copies of the details and I have directed the Clerk to make sure that latest by Monday we all have printed copies so that everybody can see the details of the budget, and by so doing we can now pass it on Tuesday,” Saraki said.

“We don’t want to run into a problem where we pass it without details and our colleagues will start to comment. So, Clerk, ensure that everybody has copies of the details by Monday and we will pass it on Tuesday,” he said.

The N8.83 trillion budget was presented to a joint session of the National Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari on December 19, 2018.