Senate Majority leader, Ahmed Lawan, says the 2017 budget would hopefully be ready
for President Buhari to sign into law next week. Lawan disclosed this when he spoke to state house correpsondents after he had
a closed door meeting with President Buhari.
According to Lawan, the search carried out at the home of Senate Chairman on Appropriation, Danjuma Goje, and the allegedly carting away of some documents
relating to the budget, are some of the factors that have caused the delay of the passage of the budget by the senate.
“This and other things that happened and essentially, the trauma that the Chairman,
Senate Committee on Appropriation had to go through, affected the process of budgeting.
When we were going on Easter
recess, members of the Senate Committee on Appropriation, including that of the House, did not go on recess. They stayed
back because that was the arrangement so that by the time we returned on April 25,
that was Tuesday, they should lay the report of the budget.
Unfortunately, that was not possible because of what
happened. But the good news is that we are doing everything possible to ensure that we catch up with the lost time. By the
grace of God, I am thinking that by next week, we should be able to finish our own work and and pass the budget for Mr President to sign”he said.
