Buhari to sign 2018 budget on Wednesday, housing gets lion share

President Muhammadu Buhari will sign the 2018 budget into law on Wednesday. A presidential source revealed that the budget would be signed at 11 A.M.

Last week Femi Adesina, special adviser to the president on media and publicity, had told state house correspondents that the president would give assent to the budget this week.

Two weeks ago, Udoma Udoma, minister of budget and national planning, said the president had not signed the budget because he was still studying it.

The two chambers of the National Assembly, on May 17th, passed the 2018 budget totaling N9.120, 334,988,225. The budget is over N500 billion higher than the N8.612 trillion proposed by President Muhammadu Buhari to the joint session of the Assembly last year.

The Chairman, Senate Appropriation Committee, Danjuma Goje, said:”The increase was done after close consultation with the executive.”

The Ministry of Power, Works and Housing received N682,959,550,242; Ministry of Transportation, N251,420,000.000; Ministry of Defence, N157,715,439.613; Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, N149,198,139.0 37; Ministry of Water Resources, N147,199,614,645; and Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, N105,156,176,854.Ministry of Education got N102,907,290,833; Ministry of Health, N86,482,848,198; Ministry of Environment, N17,492,955,833; and Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, N58,082,611,977.

The Federal Government’s special intervention programme got N150,000,000,000; grants and donor funded projects, N169,919,791,292; and zonal intervention projects, N100,000,000. The National Assembly, the National Judicial Council, the Universal Basic Education and the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) also got approval for statutory transfer worth N139,500,000,000; N109,063,630,546; and N81,882,555,891.

Meanwhile, this week’s federal executive council (FEC) meeting has been cancelled.

This is due to the celebration of Sallah, marking the end of the Ramadan month.

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