Senate approves conference committee report of Budget 2018

The senate on Wednesday approved the conference committee report of the 2018 appropriation bill.

The upper legislative chamber approved of it after Danjuma Goje, chairman of the appropriation committee, moved for its consideration.

Goje said the conference committee harmonised some words and phrases in the bill that were not the same when both chambers of the national assembly last week.

“The house version clause 10, introduced a new clause, condition for foreign loan,” the senator said.

In November, President Muhammadu Buhari presented to a joint session of the national assembly a proposed sum of N8.6 trillion for 2018.

He proposed N3.5 trillion as recurrent (non-debt) expenditure, while N2.4 trillion was earmarked for capital expenditure.

But the national assembly raised the budget by N500 billion making it N9.1 trillion. The oil benchmark was also increased from $45 to $51 per barrel.