Senate postpones debate on Budget 2018

Senate President Bukola Saraki on Tuesday announced the postponement of a debate on the 2018 budget.

Saraki said the debate, which was earlier scheduled to hold on Wednesday and Thursday, had been postponed till November 28.

President Muhammadu Buhari had presented the budget to the senate on November 7 and Udoma Udo Udoma, minister of budget and national planning had expressed the intentions of the administration to revert to a January-to-December budget calendar.

The postponement means that lawmakers have a month to review, amend,  pass the budget and return it to the presidency for signing before their recess during the Christmas holiday, if the January deadline is to be met.

At the resumption of plenary on Tuesday, Saraki told senators that the budget debate had to be postponed because of the need to pass the medium term expenditure framework (MTEF).

He also said the lawmakers would receive documents on revenue and expenditure, budget implementations and others on Tuesday.

“The reason for that is that we have to pass the MTEF, which we are hoping to relay by tomorrow, to be passed this week,” he said.

“Secondly, distribution of documents. And I hope you have all received the documents that accompany the 2018 budget. The revenue expenditure budget and the federal government-owned enterprises and agencies.

“The consolidated 2016, implementations report budget for the first quarter and second quarter of the 2017 and also budget volume 1 and 2 should be received today.

“This is a departure from the past. We intend next week Tuesday and Wednesday to debate the budget and specifically allocate Thursday for the debate on revenue and expenditure of government-owned enterprises and agencies.”