Power, Works and Housing lead
with N682.3bn Transportation follows with N251.4bn
NATIONAL Assembly, yesterday,
passed the 2018 Appropriation Bill of N9.12 trillion for the 2018 fiscal year,
explaining while it increased the budget estimate by N508 billion
from the N8.612 trillion proposed by President Muhammadu Buhari late last
year.
Presenting the details of the
2018 Appropriation Bill for consideration at the Senate, Chairman of the Senate
committee on Appropriations, Senator Danjuma Goje, APC, Gombe Central explained
that the six percent increase in the budget estimates was
done in consultation with the executive arm of government.
Senator Goje also listed the critical sectors
responsible for the increase to include: “Reduction of
deficit N50.88 billion; Security N46.72billion; Health N57.15billion; Power,
Works and Housing N106.50 billion; Education (particularly for the
infrastructure for the 12 newly established Universities and meal subsidy in
Unity schools) N15.70billion; Judiciary N10.00billion and Niger Delta
Development Commission (NDDC) N44.20billion, which is a part payment of
the NDDC liabilities on the Federal Government of Nigeria.” According to him,
this was attributed to the increase in oil price benchmark, which was increased
from the proposed $45 per barrel to $51 per barrel. Allocations In the passed
budget, projects such as Power, Works and Housing as well as Transportation got
the highest capital allocation out of total sum of N2.873 trillion in the 2018
budget.
The breakdown shows that Federal
Ministry of Power, Works and Housing got the highest allocation of N682.309
billion, followed by Transportation which received N251.420 billion;
N157.715 billion for Defence; N149.198 billion for Agriculture and
Rural Development; N147.200 billion for Water Resources and N102.907
billion for Education while N150 billion was allotted to capital Special
Intervention programme.
Breakdown of the 2018 budget also
showed that National Assembly got N139.5 billion as against N125 billion in
2017; National Judicial Council (NJC) gets N110 billion as against the sum of
N100 billion approved by President Muhammadu Buhari. Saraki speaks In his
remarks after the Appropriation Bill was passed, Senate President, Dr. Bukola
Saraki described the budget as historic because of the inclusion of the
fulfilment of the requirements of the Health Act. He stated: “A lot has
been said in areas of how we could have passed the budget earlier, and I think
there is definitely room for improvement in the area of cooperation and
collaboration between the executive and legislative arms of government.
As you all know, tive should do
something about this area. It is an important issue and I believe we must
address it. In doing that also, we must appreciate now that crude oil price is
close to 80, a lot of Nigerians are expecting to see our excess reserve account
should be on the rise but, if money is being used for subsidy at the end of the
day we will have it difficult to explain. That is why it is important that we
capture the subsidy into the budget.
“On that
note also, I want to emphasise on the issue of oversight and issue of us
ensuring that this amount we have put in the budget, that there is successful
implementation. But be that as it may, we must definitely commend that we have
seen significant high percentage of capital expenditure in this 2017 and I hope
that, that will lay a good foundation for 2018. But since 2018 is an election
year, I think a lot of work is expected of us to do proper oversight because
some of the heads and ministers might not have much time as before and if we
are not careful, those in charge might abuse those areas, so a lot needs
to be done from us. Read much more at source:
https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/05/jerked-2018-budget-n9-12tr-nass/
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