Nigeria’s national assembly has submitted the long overdue 2016 fiscal budget to President Muhammadu Buhari for additional checks as requested, blaming the executive for delays due to its “sloppy” work on the bill.
The president had refused to sign the budget has presented to him last week by the assembly, requesting the lawmakers to submit the document in its entirety in allow for detailed check, “ministry by ministry”.
The lawmakers had approved the amended budget proposal, but submitted just the highlights, rather than the whole document to the president for his signature.
Meanwhile the presidency had earlier withdrew the original bill in January because of an unrealistic oil price assumption and flaws in the draft.
Abdulmuminu Jibrin, who chairs the budget committee in the House of Representatives, told reporters late on Wednesday that the bill had been submitted to the executive.
He later issued a joint statement with his counterpart from the Senate, Danjuma Goje, in which they said that “most of the figures simply did not just add up”.
The task of balancing projected revenue and spending was “made very difficult by the sloppy manner in which the 2016 Appropriation Bill was prepared by the executive,” they said.
Last month the information minister said there was no rift between the executive and national assembly on details of the budget.
Nigeria has said it wanted to raise about $5 billion abroad to cover part of its 2016 budget deficit which could be as high as 3 trillion naira ($15 billion).
The president’s spokesman had disclosed during the week that Buhari would during his visit to China next week sign a loan deal to help fund infrastructure projects. He did not disclose the sum involved.
Nigeria has also said it planned to raise $1 billion from Eurobond investors, however no deal has been announced.
