Business
Senate To Pass 2015 Budget, Soon
The Senate has revealed
that the 2015 Appropriation Bill would be passed into law in two weeks time.
The Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Ahmed Maccido who gave the indication last Sunday explained that Nigeria was not broke despite the fall in crude oil price.
He said the Senate has pegged, the budget’s crude oil benchmark at $52 per barrel as against the $65 proposed by the executive.
According to him, it was the most realistic approach to enable the execution of the 2015 budget.
Recently, President Goodluck Jonathan had during the review of the medium term expenditure framework and Fiscal strategy paper that he submitted to both chambers of the National Assembly last December pegged the oil benchmark at $65 for the 2015 budget.
However, when Maccido addressed journalists in Abuja, he explained that his Committee decided to dump the $65 contained in the MTEF and settled for $52 due to flunctuations in the price of crude at the international market.
“We have always had pre budget meetings with the executive.
“We have been having these series of meetings before the budget was brought to us.”he said.
He explained that the decision was purely the initiative of the Senate even as he added that the concern of Senate was the completion of on going capital projects than new ones.
“This is not something new. The National Assembly has always emphasised completion of projects rather than embarking on new ones” he said.