At last, the much awaited passing of the Appropriation Bill 2017 budget seems to have finally done as Senate on Tuesday, received report of Joint Committee on Appropriation and Finance on 2017 Appropriation Bill.
Recalled that the 2017 Budget proposal report was laid four days after the expiration of the 2016 fiscal year.
President Muhammadu Buhari had presented a budget proposal of N7.30 trillion for the 2017 fiscal year before a Joint Session of the National Assembly on December 14, 2016.
From details of proposal presented by President Buhari, the sum of N2.24 trillion, representing 30.7 per cent, will be committed to capital expenditure, while N2.98 trillion would go to recurrent spending.
Also, the oil benchmark price was set at 42.5 dollar per barrel and a production estimate of 2.2 million barrels per day.
The proposal also put aggregated revenue available to fund the budget at N4.94 TN, which is 28 per cent higher than that of 2016.
However, the Chairman of the Joint Committee on Appropriation, Sen. Danjuma Goje laid the report at plenary on Tuesday.
Senate President Bukola Saraki, commended the committee for a job well done and assured that the senate would ensure the passage of the bill on Thursday.
According to Saraki, the report with details would help speed up the passage of the bill.
“On behalf of our colleagues let me congratulate the committee. This is history been made, because this is the first time report of the Appropriation Bill will be laid with detail. Because of that, by tomorrow (Wednesday) you will get hard copies of the report, but the soft copy will be ready today. We will distribute them and ensure we pass the bill on Thursday,”he added.
