Senate raises hope on 2016 budget

The Senate which had earlier stated that it was not feasible to pass the 2016 budget on the scheduled February 25 date has raised hopes that it could pass the document before the end of March.

Senate Leader, Ali Ndume, stated on Sunday that the Senate would strive to pass the budget before the end of March, which he said is the deadline for the implementation of the 2015 budget.

He said that contrary to reports, the Senate did not suspend its passage indefinitely, but only said that the February 25 deadline ‘may not be feasible’.
He said: “We have not postponed it indefinitely; we are saying that with the current developments, the February 25 deadline we gave ourselves may not be realistic.

Read also: More headaches for Buhari as NASS halts budget passage

“That is why we now said it is not possible to say we will come back on 25th and say this is the budget; we are not saying that we have suspended it indefinitely. The reason we fixed 25th was because we wanted to have a gap of five weeks.”

According to him, leadership of the National Assembly has met with ministers to iron out the grey areas and make corrections.

But chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Abdulrazak Namdas, has said submission of the 2016 budget on February 25 might still be realizable.

Namdas hinged his position on the fact that in the last two weeks, the House had done an extensive work on the budget as most stakeholders had defended their budget proposals.

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