Why 2018 budget has not been passed - Senate
- No date has been fixed for the passage of the 2018 budget, Senator Adbullahi has said
- He blamed this on head of MDAs whom he described as having lackadaisical attitude
- According to him, they have slowed down the pace of work on the budget proposal
Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi of Niger state who is the spokesperson of the Senate has said that no date has been fixed for the passage of the 2018 budget.
President Muhammadu Buhari had presented the budget in November 2017 earlier than that of 2016 and 2017, but in spite of that, the budget has still not been passed.
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Sabi said the delay of the budget was due to ‘lackadaisical attitude’ of heads of MDAs toward the ongoing budget defence.
“The MDAs are still interacting with committees, many of them are not responding. They are not responding as it should be, thus they have slowed down the pace of work on the budget proposal.”
“We can’t give time because the heads of MDAs are not responding," he said.
Boss Mustapha who is the secretary to the government of the federation had raised alarm one week before that the delay in the passage of the budget can affect its implementation.
He noted that it would also affect the delivery of campaign promises of the Buhari administration.
Meanwhile, a former president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Olisa Agbakoba, recently said that the executive violated the constitution in laying the 2018 budget before the National Assembly.
According to The Cable, Agbakoba made this known in letters addressed to Bukola Saraki, the Senate president and Yakubu Dogara, speaker of the House of Representatives.
The lawyer stated that sections 81 to 84 of the constitution spells clearly the processes involved in preparing the appropriation bill.
He noted that the constitution requires each arm of government to lay before the National Assembly its estimates of revenue and expenditure for each financial year after which it is harmonised as a bill and presented to the president for assent.
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Source: Legit.ng
