President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday signed Nigeria’s 2018 Appropriation Bill into law, seven months after proposing it to the National Assembly.
He had submitted a budget proposal of N8.612 trillion to the federal lawmakers on 7 November, 2017.
However, the legislators increased the proposal by N508 billion to N9.12 trillion, when they passed the Bill on 16 May, 2018.
”A few minutes past noon today, I signed the 2018 Appropriation Bill into Law,” the President said on his Twitter handle on Wednesday.
He assented to the bill in the presence of the Vice-President, Yemi Osinbajo, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, and his Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital.
But President Buhari raised some concerns over some of the alterations made by the legislative arm of government.
According to the commander in chief, the federal lawmakers made reductions amounting to N347bn in the allocations to 4,700 projects submitted to them for consideration and introduced 6,403 projects of their own amounting to N578bn.
“I am however concerned about some of the changes @nassnigeria has made to the budget proposals I presented,” Buhari wrote.
“The logic behind the constitutional direction that budgets should be proposed by the Executive is that, it is the Executive that knows & defines its policies & projects.
“Unfortunately, that has not been given much regard in what has been sent to me. The National Assembly made cuts amounting to N347 billion in the allocations to 4,700 projects submitted to them for consideration and introduced 6,403 projects of their own amounting to N578 billion.
”Many of the projects cut are critical and may be difficult, if not impossible, to implement with the reduced allocation. Some of the new projects inserted by @nassnigeria have not been properly conceptualised, designed and costed and will therefore be difficult to execute,” he noted.
