Budget 2016 won't be signed just yet

The federal government has said that talks to reach a truce between it and the National Assembly on grey areas in the 2016 budget were still ongoing, adding that it could not give any definite date as to when the budget would be signed into law. The implication of the government’s statement is that the hopes of many Nigerians who were expecting that the 2016 budget would be signed into law anytime soon has been dashed, Thisday reports.

This was one of the outcomes of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting which held at the Presidential Villa in Abuja yesterday, presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari. Briefing State House correspondents at the end of the meeting, the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Mr. Udoma Udo Udoma, said that ahead of the eventual signing of the 2016 budget, the federal government had set up a monitoring and evaluation mechanism to ensure that the budget is implemented. Udoma also dismissed speculations that the budget was returned to the National Assembly to be reworked.

Despite the absence of clarity on the fate of this year’s budget, the government set out the timetable for the submission of the 2017 budget, explaining that this was done to ensure early delivery of next year’s expenditure estimates.

Source:;Thisday