Senate to pass 2015 supplementary budget next week

The Senate will pass the N460 billion supplementary budget next week, BusinessDay gathers.

This comes after a debate on the general principles on the budget, which scaled through second reading on Tuesday.

Leading debate on the Supplementary Appropriation Bill, Ali Ndume, Senate leader, said the proposals in the budget would enhance the critical need of the country.

Senate president, Bukola Saraki, referred the bill to the Appropriation Committee, chaired by Danjuma Goje to report back in one week.

The Senate is expected to immediately pass the budget once submitted next week.

President Muhammadu Buhari had forwarded the 2015 supplementary appropriation bill of N465.6 billion to the Senate, which was read last week by the Senate president.

Out of this amount, N460,636,926,857 is for recurrent expenditure, while N5 billion is earmarked for capital expenditure.

The supplementary budget is predicated on oil production of 2.2003 million barrels per day, benchmark price of $48 per barrel and an exchange rate of N190 to $1.

Also yesterday, the Senate rejected a prayer by Eyinnaya Abaribe summoning President Buhari, who doubles as petroleum minister, on the current fuel scarcity across the country.

It, however, urged the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to continue the current push to stem the tide of fuel scarcity.

Explaining the rationale for rejecting the prayer summoning Buhari, Senate spokesperson, Aliyu Sabi, said the President remained the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, and as such, minister of state for petroleum, Emmanuel Kachikwu, could appear on his behalf.

“That Mr President chose to oversee the petroleum ministry does not make him cede his authority of being the Commander-in-Chief. If we have explanation to be made by a minister and in this case petroleum, the minister of state (petroleum), is the person that will definitely come forward to make this explanation,” he said.