Acting President Yemi Osinbajo will sign the 2017 budget. The budget was due to be signed a fortnight ago, but the exercise was put off for undisclosed reasons.
Since the passage of the budget by the national assembly on May 11 controversy has trailed it.
The controversy was sparked off by Ita Enang, senior special assistant on legislative matters to President Muhammadu Buhari, who had said that his principal, who is on medical leave in the UK, would sign the budget.
However, Laolu Akande, senior special assistant on media to the acting president, later explained that Osinbajo would sign the budget when he is satisfied with its content as passed by the national assembly.
However, a statement by Garba Shehu, President Muhammad Buhari’s Senior Special Assistant, Media and Publicity, Monday afternoon, said that following the receipt of a full brief on the 2017 Appropriation Bill as passed by the National Assembly, and to buttress the unity at the highest level of government, “President Muhammadu Buhari has indicated that it is in the interest of the nation’s economy for the Acting President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, to sign the Appropriation Bill into law.
“In a letter dated June 10, 2017, which he personally signed and addressed to the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, the President also said he was “pleased by the joint resolution that the Executive would submit next year’s budget proposals by October 2017 and the National Assembly will conclude the Appropriation process by December 2017, so that the country can return to a normal fiscal period from next year onwards,” Shehu said in the statement.
The National Assembly transmitted the budget to the presidency on May 18, but no action was taken on it until Monday.