Posted by From LUCKY NWANKWERE, Abuja on
President Umaru Yar'Adua on Monday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja formally signed the 2008 Appropriation Bill as passed by the National Assembly into law, thus ending weeks of controversy and buck passing between the executive and the National Assembly.
• Travels out for medical check-up
President Umaru Yar'Adua on Monday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja formally signed the 2008 Appropriation Bill as passed by the National Assembly into law, thus ending weeks of controversy and buck passing between the executive and the National Assembly.
The president's assent to the bill, which was done in his official residence due to his ill health, was witnessed by Vice President Goodluck Jonathan, the President of the Senate, David Mark and the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Usman Bayero Nafada, among others.
The total budget as passed by the legislature on March 13, 2008 and signed into law on Monday is N2.74 trillion, with N860 billion capital expenditure and N1.88 trillion recurrent expenditure.
Presidential spokesman, Mr. Olusegun Adeniyi, who briefed State House correspondents at the end of the brief ceremony, quoted the president as saying he expected all agencies of the Federal Government to implement the 2008 budget with 'the highest sense of responsibility and with total deference to due process."
He also pledged that every effort to ensure that actual results, commensurate with the resources provided, were achieved with the 2008 budget, the main thrust of which, he said, was to deliver on the administration's promise of poverty alleviation and its seven-point agenda.
After signing the budget, President Yar'Adua departed for Wiesbaden, Germany for what Adeniyi said was a 'medical review of an indisposition believed to be due to an allergic reaction." He is expected back in the country before the weekend, according to the presidential aide.
The president was originally scheduled for an official trip to Senegal on Monday, where he was billed to attend a meeting of African heads of state and government on the New African Partnership for Development (NEPAD), which had to be put off on account of his deteriorating health condition.
The Minister of State for Finance, Mr. Aderemi Babalola, who also briefed newsmen on the budget, said the signing into law showed not only the beauty of dialogue, democracy and consensus, but was also a testimony that both the executive and the legislative arms 'are on the same page and are working in the same direction for the benefits and welfare of Nigerians."
He, however, confirmed that the executive will, in the next few days, forward to the National Assembly an amendment bill to finetune some grey areas jointly agreed by both the legislative and the executive arms.
According to Babalola, the grey areas concern mainly the new projects that were added to the budget, which he said both parties agreed on how some of them would be taken out as a reflection of the amendment bill that would be sent to the National Assembly.
He also hinted of a supplementary budget expected to be forwarded to the National Assembly, which he said the executive considered to be in line with the focus and will fit into the overall fiscal regime of the Yar'Adua administration.