Breaking News: Senate Receives 2016 Appropriation bill

Senate on Tuesday received the report of the Committee on Appropriation on 2016 budget for consideration after many weeks of postponement.
The Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Danjuma Goje laid the report to the Senate for consideration by the whole house.

The laying of the report put to rest many weeks of speculation on the 2016 budget report.

While Senator Danjuma Goje, leader of the Committee on Appropriations, gave the report to the Senate, while Abdulmumin Jibrin submitted the report to the House of Representatives.

The budget, which was presented by President Muhammadu Buhari three months ago, was initially going to be passed in February, but its passage was delayed due to several errors that needed to be corrected, according to Senate Spokesman Abdullahi Sabi. The presentation of the budget was further adjourned due to the death of House member Musa Onwana, who died on Thursday.

In addition to the budget, the Senate received the report of the Conference Committee on the medium-term expenditure framework (MTEF) and the Auditor-General’s annual report

, Jibrin said, "N351, 379,000,000 only, is for statutory transfers. "N1, 475, 320,000,000 only, is for debt service, N2, 648, 600,000,000 only, is for recurrent (non debt) expenditure.

"While the sum of N1, 845, 540, 000,000 inclusive of N157, 150, 000,000 is for statutory transfers and N86, 000,000,000 as interest on capitalised loans, is for contribution to the development fund for capital expenditure for the year ending on the 31st Day of December, 2016."