Saraki, Senate silent on failure to meet its deadline to lay 2019 budget

The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday failed to meet the deadline it set to lay the 2019 budget.

The Senate President, Bukola Saraki, who gave the deadline and the committee, which was expected to comply with it, during plenary on Thursday, kept mute and failed to explain why the target was not met.

Recall that Saraki had at a recent sitting of the lawmakers directed the Appropriations Committee to ensure that the report was laid on Thursday, April 11..

He had also directed other committees to turn in their report to the appropriations committee to enable it tidy its own report.

Saraki had then, promised that the 2019 appropriation bill would be passed on April 16.

However, at the Thursday meeting of the lawmakers, presentation of the report was not listed on the order paper.

Earlier on Tuesday, vice-chairman of appropriations committee, Sunday Ogbuoji, had regretted that only 24 committees had submitted their reports to his committee.

He had said, “We are still having some challenges with the sub-committees on appropriations because out of the 61 committees that we have, only about 24 committees have submitted their reports and we are unable to go ahead and write the appropriation report unless we get further directive from here.”

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It is likely the lawmakers may not be able to pass the 2019 budget on April 16 as it promised looking at the new turn of events.

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