Buhari signs 2019 budget today

Barring any last-minute change in plans, President Muhammadu
Buhari will on Monday (today) give his assent to the 2019
appropriation bill.

The assent of the President will officially make the bill become
law and signal the commencement of the 2019 fiscal budget.

The development was confirmed by a top official in the Budget
Office of the Federation.

The official, who pleaded not to be named as he was not
officially permitted to speak on the matter, explained that details
of the signed budget would be made available during a public
presentation on Tuesday by the Minister of Budget and National
Planning, Senator Udo Udoma.

Already, the minister had sent out invitations for the
event.

The invitation read in part, “Dear Sir/Ma, On behalf of the
Honourable Minister of Budget and National Planning, Sen. Udoma Udo
Udoma, CON, the Director General, Budget Office of the Federation
hereby invites you to a public presentation of the approved FGN
2019 Budget scheduled as follows: Date: Tuesday, 28th May 2019;
Time: 10:30 am; Venue: Main Auditorium, Federal Ministry of
Finance, CBD Abuja.”

A presidency source, who also confirmed the signing, told one of
our correspondents that the signing of the budget would be
performed by the President “around 10 am at the villa.”

Buhari had laid the budget on December 18, 2018 on the floor of
the National Assembly but certain extraneous forces such as the
Christmas and New Year breaks as well as the general election had
affected the quick passage of the appropriation bill.

When the bill was presented by the President to the National
Assembly, the sum of N8.83tn was proposed.

It was made up of N4.04tn for recurrent expenditure, N2.03tn for
capital expenditure and N2.14tn for debt servicing, among
others.

However, after undergoing legislative scrutiny, the lawmakers on
April 30 passed the 2019 budget of N8.91tn, raising it by over
N90.3bn.

Highlights of the 2019 budget as approved by the National
Assembly include the capital expenditure of N2.09tn, recurrent
expenditure of N4.05tn, statutory transfers of N502bn, fiscal
deficit of N1.9tn, and special intervention of N500bn.

The lawmakers also approved debt service of N2.25tn. Out of the
figure, N1.7tn was approved for domestic debts, while the sum of
N433bn was provided for foreign debts.

Similarly, the sum of N110bn was approved for a sinking fund to
retire maturing debt obligations.

In recent times, there had been a delay in the passage and
signing of the Federal Government budget due to disagreements
between the executive and the National Assembly.

As a result of the power tussle between the executive and the
legislature, the budget implementation had always commenced very
late into the year.

For instance, the 2011 budget was passed on March 25, 2011,
while that of 2012 was passed on March 14 of that same year.

For the 2013 budget, it was passed by the lawmakers on December
20, 2012, and signed into law by former President Goodluck Jonathan
in February 2013 while 2014, 2015 and 2016 budgets were also signed
in May of each year.

The 2017 budget, which was submitted to the lawmakers in
December 2016, was not passed and assented to until June 2017.

The 2018 budget, which was designed to consolidate on the
Economic Recovery and Growth Plan, was presented to the National
Assembly on November 7, 2017.

It was passed by the lawmakers on May 16, transmitted to Buhari
on May 25 and assented by him on June 20.

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