TheCable

The federal government on Saturday said the late signing of the 2016 budget will not affect its full implementation.

President Muhammadu Buhari signed the bill into law on Friday, five months after he presented it to the national assembly.

In a statement issued on his behalf by Akpandem James, his media aide, Udo Udoma, minister of budget and national planning, said the government was striving to ensure that the late signing would not affect the implementation.

“The federal government aims, and will be working, to achieve 100 per cent implementation of the 2016 budget in spite of the late signing of the 2016 appropriation bill,” the statement read.

“This clarification becomes necessary to clear the misrepresentation by some newspapers that full implementation of the budget has been ruled out because of the late start.”

Udoma said while responding to questions from state house correspondents on Friday, he admitted that the late approval might constrain full implementation of the budget, but he added that he explained that the federal government intends to still try its best to achieve 100 per cent implementation.

The minister said at no time did he rule out the possibility of full implementation.