ABUJA - There were indications yesterday that the Senate is set to pass the joint conference 2008 Amendment Appropriation Bill.
The Upper House, it was gathered, wants the House of Representatives to quickly empanel its Conference Committee with a view to harmonizing the differences in the budget details.
Before going on recess in July, the House passed the Appropriation Act Amendment Bill in which President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua had requested a cut of a whopping N181 billion from the earlier passed budget.
Both the House of Representatives and the Senate had considered the proposal and raised the budget to N2, 647,492,865,643, explaining that the N181 billion cut was too much for such a huge budget.
However, there were discrepancies in the details of the amended budget, prompting the Senate at its one-day emergency sitting on August 13 to set up a Conference Committee to meet with the House of Representatives Conference Committee in a joint sitting to harmonize the budget details.
A senator volunteered yesterday that the Senate ensured that it reconvened from its recess on August 13 to consider the Appropriation Amendment Bill and set up a Conference Committee when it discovered some differences in aspects of the budget.
He stated that, the House had not deemed it fit to do that, adding that the House is expected to do that when it resumes next week.
The National Assembly had raised an initial budget proposal of N2.4 trillion forwarded to it by the executive to N2.8 trillion, a situation that did not go down well with the executive, which in turn reserved its endorsement for implementation.
However, the figure was reduced to N2.7 trillion and it was signed by President Yar’Adua on the understanding that he would forward an amendment bill for further reduction of the figure.
This was later followed up with a letter from the presidency titled 2008 Appropriated Amendment Bill, addressed to Senate President David Mark, seeking the Senate approval for a total budget sum of N2,567,489,865,645 (this is about N181 billion
less than the earlier passed budget).
In the letter, the president sought to reduce the Recurrent Expenditure from an earlier approved N1.351 trillion to N1.318 trillion; and reduction in contribution to the Development Fund for Capital Expenditure from initial N845 billions to N714 billion.
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