President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday signed the N9.12 trillion 2018 Appropriation Bill into law, and lamented that it would be difficult to implement because the budget figures have been tampered with by the National Assembly.
The President accused the National Assembly of cutting N347 billion from 4,700 critical projects and injecting 403 unnecessary projects at the cost of N578 billion, stressing that the proposals introduced by the lawmakers were neither properly conceptualized, designed nor costed.
President Buhari noted that the projects were supposed to be carried out by states and local government areas.
The President, who did not hide his reservation on how the budget was handled by the National Assembly, said he was compelled to sign the budget in the interest of Nigerians and in order not to shut down the recovery of the economy which has been affected by the delay in passing the budget.
However, the leadership of the National Assembly claimed that the power of appropriation belongs to it and that what its members did with the budget was to ensure that all the six geo-political zones of the country were evenly treated.
However, the President indicated his intention to send to the National Assembly a supplementary budget to cover the projects cut off which, according to him, are very important to the government.
He lamented that while the National Assembly cut some of the critical projects and smuggled in some personal projects, the lawmakers also went ahead to increase its budget with N14.5 billion from the initial N125 billion to N139.5 billion without any discussion with the Executive.
