JUST-IN: Buhari To Sign 2023 Budget Tuesday — Lawan

President Muhammadu Buhari will sign the 2023 Appropriation Bill into law on Tuesday, January 3, 2023.

Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, disclosed this to State House correspondents on Friday after meeting with President Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

According to him, he discussed Buhari’s recent additional loan request, the legislature’s support to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) ahead of the general elections, the 2023 Appropriation Bill and other national matters, with Mr. President.

He said: “We are looking forward to Mr. President signing the Appropriation Bill 2023, by the grace of God, on Tuesday.

“This is because we signed the documents yesterday (Thursday), having lost some time because of some anomalous figures we had in the Bill presented to the National Assembly.

“But thank God, the National Assembly in both chambers has passed the Appropriation Bill 2023 on Wednesday, and I’m sure that Mr. President and his team, on the executive side, will work on what we have done. And the first thing on Tuesday, the first official working day of the year, I believe that Mr. President will be signing the Appropriation Bill 2023.”

He lamented that the National Assembly would have passed the Money Bill a week earlier had it not been for irregularities spotted in the proposed legislation.

Lawan added, “We are very pleased that we have been able to, in the last four years, ensure the passage of the Appropriation Bills in record time before every Christmas, and Mr. President had always signed before the end of the year.

“This year, particularly, is because of the anomalies, very undesirable and unfortunate situation that we had to delay a little bit.

“You will recall that the National Assembly had to cut down its Christmas recess to come back on Wednesday for the sole purpose of passing the Appropriation Bill, which we could have passed a week before. So, all the same! There’s nothing that we missed.”

He said a seamless working relationship between the executive and the legislature has regularised the signing of the Appropriation Bills since 2018, resulting in a “predictable January to December budget for our country.”

According to him, this pattern set by the federal government has trickled down to the States most of whom now pass their annual budgets and assent to them before the new year.