The Senate on Wednesday stood down the consideration of the 2019 budget report due to the absence of the Chairman of its Committee on Appropriation, Sen. Danjuma Goje. The chairman, who was billed to present his committee’s report, according to the Order Paper, was not available while the Deputy Chairman, Sen. Sunny Ogorji, was also absent at yesterday’s plenary.
This made Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, to announce that the passage of the budget will be deferred to Tuesday, April 30. He also instructed the Clerk of the Senate, Nelson Ayewoh, to ensure that all senators get copies of the details of the budget report latest by Monday, April 29. This, he said, will enable the senators to study the budget details ahead of the consideration of the budget report and passage next Tuesday.
Huhuonline.com however learnt that the Senate postponed the third reading of the 2019 Appropriation Bill till Tuesday even after the committee on appropriations on the national budget had laid its report which was billed for consideration at the plenary on Wednesday.
However, the estimates were not available to all lawmakers yet, according to the senate president. Hence, Saraki directed that copies of the estimates 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.
