BREAKING: Reps to pass 2018 budget Wednesday

The House of Representatives on Tuesday said the 2018 Appropriation Bill of N9.12trn will be passed on Wednesday.


Deputy Speaker of the House, Yussuff Lasun, who presided at plenary, made this known after the budget report was presented by the Chairman, Committee on Appropriation, Rep. Mustapha Dawaki.

The N9.12 trn budget is N410bn higher than the N8.61trn appropriated in 2017.

Lasun advised members to pick copies of the budget from the appropriation committee, as the House was likely to pass the budget on Wednesday.

Controversy had trailed the delay in the passage of the bill, with the National Assembly accusing Ministries, Departments and Agencies of failing to defend their budget proposals.

The delay had prompted President Muhammadu Buhari to issue a deadline to heads of all MDAs to defend their budgets unfailingly.

A breakdown of the budget indicates that N530.4bn is for statutory transfer, N2.20trn for debt service and N199bn for sinking fund for maturing loans.

Also, N3.51trn is allocated to recurrent (non-debt) expenditure, while N2.87trn is earmarked for development fund for capital expenditure.