The Senate has postponed passage of the 2019 Appropriation Bill till Tuesday.
Although the report by the Senate Committee on Appropriations on the national budget was billed for consideration at the plenary on Wednesday, the lawmakers resolved to postpone the third reading of the bills as the details of the estimates had not been made available.
Senate President, Bukola Saraki, ruled that copies of the details be made available to lawmakers by Monday, ahead of the passage of the budget on Tuesday.
Saraki said: “Some members have not got 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 next week.
“We don’t want to run into problems 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.”
Work on this year’s budget proposal has been slow, owing to the failure of many of the Senate Standing Committees to submit their reports in respect of the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) under their oversight.
The various committee reports ought to have been submitted to the Appropriation Committee by April 11, as earlier directed by Saraki.
