TheCable

Senate President Bukola Saraki says the senate will ensure the passage of the 2017 budget on Thursday.

Saraki said this after the report of the budget was laid at plenary by Danjuma Goje, chairman of the joint committee on appropriation.

Commending the committee for a “job well done”, Saraki said in the history of the country, this would be the first time that budget report would be laid with details.

“On behalf of our colleagues let me congratulate the committee,” he said.

“This is history being made, because this is the first time report of the appropriation bill will be laid with details.

“Because of that, by tomorrow (Wednesday) you will get hard copies of the report, but the soft copy will be ready today.

“We will distribute them and ensure we pass the bill on Thursday.”

The 2017 budget proposal report was laid four days after the expiration of the 2016 fiscal year.

President Muhammadu Buhari had presented a budget proposal of N7.30 trillion for the 2017 fiscal year before a joint session of the national assembly on December 14, 2016.

From details of the proposal presented by Buhari, the sum of N2.24 trillion, representing 30.7 per cent, will be committed to capital expenditure, while N2.98 trillion will go to recurrent spending.

Also, the oil benchmark price was set at 42.5 dollar per barrel and a production estimate of 2.2 million barrels per day.

The proposal also put the aggregated revenue available to fund the budget at N4.94 tn, which is 28 per cent higher than that of 2016.