TheCable

Nigeria’s 2018 appropriation bill will be submitted to the national assembly in October, Ita Enang, special adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on national assembly matters (senate), has said.

He said this on Sunday when he appeared at a NAN forum in Abuja.

The national assembly had fixed October as the deadline for the submission of the bill.

Enang said the federal government was committed to meeting the deadline to take the country back to the annual budget cycle of January to December.

He said different ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) have already made their budget inputs and submissions to the ministry of budget and national planning.

“The ministers are already appearing before the ministry and defending their submissions,” he said.

“It is intended that in the next few days they would have completed the exercise and have the total of the budget as well as get ready with the final draft. Everything is being done to ensure that we keep to the date.”

He said the national assembly would consider it between then and November and by December it would have been passed.

“The current budget will end in 12 months and having been signed on June 12, 2016, the budget is legally to run between June 12, 2017 and June 12, 2018.

“But the intention of the government is to make sure that the implementation date and assent will be for January 1, 2018 so that we will return the budget to the conventional January.”