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Saraki has tasked the various standing committees of the
National Assembly to ensure full implementation of the 2016
budget
Senate President, Bukola Saraki has tasked the various
standing committees of the National Assembly to ensure full
implementation of the 2016 budget through effective use of
their oversight duties.


President Muhammadu Buhar had on December 22, 2015
presented N6, 077,680,000,000 budget but the Senate passed
N6, 060,677,358,227 as the 2016 budget, a reduction of N0,
017,002,641,773.


Highlights of the budget as passed included Aggregate
Expenditure N6,060,677,358,227; Statutory Transfers
N351,370,000.000 (retained); Debt Service
N1,475,320,000,000 (retained); Recurrent Expenditure reduced
from N2,648,600,000,000 to N2,646,389,236,196; Capital
Expenditure also reduced from N1,845,540,000,000 to
N1,587,598,122,,031; Fiscal Deficit N2,204,936,925,711.16
while Deficit/GDP is 2.14%


Giving his remark during the plenary after the passage of the
2016 Appropriation Bill by the Senate in Abuja, the Senate
President also urged President Muhammadu Buhari to ensure
an effective implementation of the budget, while also calling on
the President to ensure an early presentation of the next year
appropriation bill to the National Assembly.

He also pledged that the Senate would immediately commence
the amendment of the Public Procurement Bill currently before
the National Assembly as a way of aiding the effective
implementation of the budget.

According to a statement by the special assistant to the Senate
President on print media, Chuks Okocha, the Senate President
said: “The budget reflects efficient and equitable allocation of
resources to reduce the challenges that we are all aware of.
This budget is a product of bipartisan engagement,
commitment and patriotism.


“It gives me great joy to commend and appreciate all the
efforts that all of you, my colleagues, have put in. It is the duty
of the Executive arm to ensure full implementation of this
budget as part of the campaign to bring succuor to our people.
While implementing it, we charge the Executive to also consider
the need to support locally produced goods in order to help our
economy.

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2016 budget: What the senate passed


“We have all seen the earlier hiccups in the beginning of the
budget and we hope that by the time we are preparing the
2017 budget, the Ministries, Departments and Agencies and the
Budget Office would improve their level of interaction. We also
hope that government itself would bring the budget much
earlier to give ample time for the legislature to do its job. It is
very important that we do this.


“I will also thank the Appropriation Committee and, of course,
we have all noted the areas of omission and I hope the
Executive will be able to address the different areas that we
talked about.


“I also particularly observed that we have made an effort to
reduce the size of the budget, in our own view, to reduce our
deficit and also reduce our level of borrowing and as much as
possible we all want a budget that is sustainable.

“We have played our part; the different committees should do
their job now in the area of oversight to ensure that we have a
budget that is fully implementable.


“Nigerians have been waiting for us to pass the budget; I think
at this time too, the implementing agencies should ensure that
they get to work quickly in implementing the budget. We on our
part have one or two bills to consider like the Public
Procurement Act so as to assist with easy implementation of
the budget.”

He commended the Senators for a job well done, despite the
earlier hiccups encountered when the 2016 Appropriation Bill
was presented last year.

https://www.naij.com/775315-revealed-how-saraki-plans-to-monitor-buharis-2016-budget.html?source=breaking

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