The presidency has revealed that the details of the 2017 Appropriation Bill which was passed into law by the National Assembly on Thursday is yet to be delivered to them.
The Senior Special Assistant to the Acting President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Laolu Akande, confirmed this on Friday, 24 hours after the bill was passed.
“The long and short of it is that we (the presidency) have not received it (the Budget details) yet,” he said.
Akande later announced on his Twitter handle, @akandeoj, that the presidency was still awaiting the details.
“In response to several media inquiries on the 2017 budget, presidency is awaiting the document passed on Thursday by the National Assembly.
“The Buhari administration is keenly awaiting official transmission of the formal 2017 budget document and assured this will happen soon,” he wrote.
The National Assembly had on Thursday passed the bill with estimates totaling N7.441trn.
The passage followed the consideration and adoption of a report by the Senate and House of Representatives’ Committees on Appropriations on the bill.
The approved budget was based on the Medium Term Expenditure Framework/Fiscal Strategy benchmark price of crude oil pegged at $44.50 and based on crude oil production of 2.2 mbpd, and an exchange rate of N305 to a dollar.
Of the total, N434,412,950,249 is for statutory transfers; N1,841,345,727,206 for debt service; N177,460,296,707 for sinking fund for maturing bonds; while N2,990,920,033,435 for recurrent (non-debt) expenditure.
The sum of N2,174,496,775,867 is for contribution to the Development Fund for Capital Expenditure (exclusive of capital expenditure in statutory transfers) for the year ending on December 31, 2017.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, who noted that the passage of the budget was worth celebrating, had warned that on no account must the approved budget figures be altered without the approval of the National Assembly.
The President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, said the lawmakers scored a number of firsts in the processing and passage of the budget.