The Nigerian Senate has postponed voting on the 2016 budget from Feb. 25 because ministers cannot agree on revised public spending plans, lawmakers said on Tuesday, Reuters reports.

President Muhammadu Buhari presented a record $30 billion budget in December but asked for it to be withdrawn in January to make changes after a further fall in oil prices forced the deficit up to 3 trillion naira ($15 billion) from 2.2 trillion.

Abdulmumin Jibrin, chairman of the budget committee in the lower house, or House of Representatives, said the government had yet to agree on how much ministries would be allocated.

“The National Assembly sessions have witnessed disagreements between various ministers and top civil servants,” he told a joint news conference with Danjuma Goje, the chairman of a committee tasked with the budget in the upper house, or Senate.

Goje said the government wanted more “more time to do a thorough job” but did not give a new date.

“We don’t want to pass a budget that will be returned to us. We need to remove all ambiguities and paddings,” he said.

Nigeria, Africa’s biggest oil producer, has held talks with the World Bank and has looked at borrowing from the African Development Bank and China Exim Bank to plug the budget gap as oil trades around $30 a barrel, down from over $100 in 2014.

On Monday, Buhari’s health minister Isaac Adewole had sharply criticised planned allocations for his ministry.

“In the revised budget as re-submitted, 15.7 billion naira for capital allocation (expenditure) has been moved to other areas. Some allocations made are not in line with our priorities,” he said.

“We have to look into the details of the budget and re-submit it to the committee. This was not what we submitted.”

After highlighting the economic challenges that confronted the country due to the fall in oil prices, the president vowed the budget would cut waste from government spending and its funds would only be used for public good.

“We are determined to ensure that our resources are managed prudently and utilized solely for the public good,” Mr. Buhari said. “To set the proper tone, one of our early decisions was the adoption of a zero based budgeting approach, which ensures that resources are aligned with government’s priorities and allocated efficiently.”

However, a breakdown of the line items of the 2016 Appropriation Bill, however, shows that what the president said cannot be farther from the truth.


Read more: http://www.signalng.com/senate-refuses-vote-on-buharis-budget-proposal/

eleyi gidi gan o

budget of yams