THE Federal Executive Council (FEC), on Wednesday, indicated that there would be more delay before President Muhammadu Buhari will sign the 2016 Appropriation Bill into law.Addressing State House correspondents after a meeting of the council presided over by the president, on Wednesday, Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udoma Udoma, said it was not ready, as government was still discussing it.
But he revealed that the Federal Government was already considering a timetable for the 2017 appropriation bill.
Udoma was joined at the briefing by his Power, Works and Housing counterpart, Babatunde Fashola; Minister of Communication, Adebayo Shittu and the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, who all gave updates on the various memos from their ministries deliberated upon by FEC. When asked about the status of the budget, which has been a subject of controversy, following claims by government that the National Assembly had substituted some key elements with other things. Udoma said, “government is still talking.”He revealed that the council has approved a timetable for the 2017 budget to make sure that it was passed on time.
“To make sure that 2017 budget is done on time, a timetable was approved for it,” Udoma stated, adding that, “I think the idea is to get to the National Assembly on time, so that they can pass it this year.”Similarly, he noted that FEC also discussed a mechanism to monitor the 2016 budget, in anticipation of the president’s assent to the bill. According to him, “on the expectation that we will soon have a budget, the monitoring and evaluation mechanism to make sure that the budget delivers what it promises was looked at by the Federal Executive Council and approved.”