Finally AG President Yemi Osinbajo Signs 2017 Budget Into Law

Acting President Yemi Osinbajo on Monday signed the N7.44 trillion 2017 Appro­priation Bill into Law.
Osinbajo’s endorse­ment of the budget comes after weeks of anxiety over

 Chief of Staff to the Presi­dent, Abba Kyari; the Min­ister of Budget/Nation­al Planning, Udoma Udo Udoma and the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun; as well as some other minis­ters and senior presidential aides.
In his remarks after ap­pending his signature to the fis­cal document, that was handed over to him by the Presidential Adviser on National Assembly Matters, Ita Enang, the Acting President explained that the de­lay in giving assent was caused by unexpected changes the law­makers introduced to the Budg­et.
He said the changes were se­rious enough to derail the Bu­hari administration’s priori­ty programmes, which is why the lawmakers have agreed to reinstate the programmes and the Executive will formally seek virement to get addition­al budgetary approval for them.
His words: “The final pres­entation and the signing of the budget has been considerably delayed. This was largely due to disagreements we had about the changes introduced to our 2017 Budget proposals by the National Assembly”.
“The Executive took the view that the changes fun­damentally affected some of our priority programmes and would make implementation extremely difficult and in some cases impossible.”
However, through a series of patriotic and mature negoti­ations, Osinbajo added that “the leadership of the National As­sembly has given us a commit­ment that the National Assem­bly will reinstate the budgetary allocations for all the important executive projects, such as the railway standard gauge projects, the Mambilla Power Project, the Second Niger Bridge, the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, etc. which they had reduced to fund some of the new projects they intro­duced”.
“This reinstatement will be by way of an application for virement by the Executive which they have agreed will be expeditiously considered and approved by the National As­sembly.”
With the signing of the 2017 Budget, the biggest in the nation’s history, into law, the Federal Government will au­thorise the issue from the Con­solidated Revenue Fund of the Federation of the total sum of N7.441,175,486,758.
Of that amount, whether he would do it or wait for President Muham­madu Buhari to return from his medical vacation in Lon­don.
The prevarication ended at the weekend when, from London, Buhari gave the go-ahead for Osinbajo to sign the Budget “in the interest of the nation’s economy”.
The 2017 Budget is christened the “Budget of Economic Recovery and Growth”.
The brief signing cer­emony took place at the Vice President’s Confer­ence Room of the Presiden­tial Villa. Senate President Bukola Saraki and his dep N438,412,952,249 will be for statutory transfers. N1.841,345,727,206 will be for debt service. N177,416,296,707 will be for a Sinking Fund for maturing bonds.
A total of N2.987,550,3436 will be for recurrent non-debt expenditure while the sum of N2.177,866,775,867 will be for contribution to the Develop­ment Fund for capital expend­iture exclusive of capital ex­penditure in statutory transfers for the year ending on 31st De­cember 2017.
Osinbajo re-echoed Buha­ri’s promise that the 2018 budg­et proposals will be presented to the National Assembly by Octo­ber this year to forestall anoth­er delay and hoped the lawmak­ers would pass it by December so that he nation can return to a January-December fiscal year so as to accommodate the finan­cial cycle of the private sector.
He thanked the federal cab­inet and the National Assembly members for ensuring a less ac­rimonious passage of the budg­et, noting that “the process of preparing and processing this Bill was much smoother than the 2016 Appropriations Bill”.
“On the executive side, there were no allegations of errors, or mistakes, and there was a signif­icant improvement in the qual­ity of the preparation, as well as the presentation”.
“I wish to commend the Ministry of Budget and Plan­ning for such a remarkable im­provement over a single budg­et cycle”.
“On the side of the Nation­al Assembly, I wish to commend the collaborative spirit of the en­gagements our MDAs had with their various committees, and with the leadership, during the budget defence sessions. There were far fewer reported cases of acrimony, or hostile wrangling this year, than in the past.”
The Acting President spoke further on the significance of the budget, saying that it “re­flects our commitment to en­sure strong linkage between the medium-term Econom­ic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) recently launched by His Excellency, President Mu­hammadu Buhari and the an­nual budgets”.
“It is designed to bring the Nigerian economy out of reces­sion unto a path of sustainable and inclusive growth.”
The 2017 budget has a reve­nue projection of N5.08 trillion and an aggregate expenditure of N7.44 trillion. The project­ed fiscal deficit of N2.36 trillion is to be financed largely by bor­rowing.