Buhari to present budget to senate on Tuesday

‎President Muhammadu Buhari has written to the senate informing it of his decision to present the 2016 appropriation bill next Tuesday.

Senate President Bukola Saraki read the president’s letter on the floor of the upper legislat‎ive chamber on Wednesday.
‎
On December 8, the president had sent a letter containing the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) to‎ the senate, proposing N500 billion in the 2016 budget for social investments.‎‎

In the letter, Buhari explained that the money was for the social welfare programmes such as “school feeding initiatives, conditional cash transfer to the most vulnerable and post National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) grants”.‎‎

“The federal government will collaborate with state governments to‎ institute well-structured social welfare intervention programme such as school feeding programme initiatives, conditional cash transfer to the most vulnerable, and post NYSC grant,” the letter read.‎

“N500bn has been provisioned in the 2016 budget as social investments for these programmes.”

It added that the interventions would start as a pilot scheme and work towards securing the support of donor agencies and development partners in order to minimise potential risks‎.

The sen‎ate approved the MTEF and retained the $38 oil benchmark for the 2016 budget as proposed by the federal government.