By Modupe Gbadeyanka
Federal government has commenced implementation of the 2018 budget signed this month by President Muhammadu Buhari in order to boost the economy and create jobs for Nigerians.
Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Mr Ita Enang, disclosed that at the moment, all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) have been directed by Mr Buhari to take urgent step to activate the economy.
In November 2017, President Buhari presented a budget of N8.6 trillion to a joint session of the National Assembly.
However, when the Appropriation Bill was passed by the parliament in May 2018, it was raised to N9.1 trillion.
Mr Buhari, while signing the bill into an act in June 2018, frowned at this move by the legislative arm of government, saying if not for the fact that the budget had been delayed for too long, he would not have signed it into law.
According to him, the National Assembly removed critical projects meant to boost the economy and replaced them with theirs numbering 6,403 valued at N578 billion.
In an interview with the News Agency (NAN) in Abuja on Thursday, the President’s adviser said despite this and other observations raised by Mr Buhari in the 2018 budget, work has already started on the implementation.
According to him, “Mr President has directed that very immediate and urgent steps be taken so that the economy be activated, employment be created so that the market will be active and people can go around to buy what they need to buy.
‘’Therefore, those are the words of Mr President. We are not dwelling on any other matter rather than implementation.”
He said further that, “Some of the ministries have already advertised and commenced the procurement process pending which of the projects will finally come out of the budget and how much they will come out even the budget was finally approved,” noting that with this, they would conclude the procurement process so that their work can go on.
“Those that are within the project competence of the Federal Executive Council, the respective ministers will take the memos to the council. That is where we are working now,” he added.
Mr Enang, while commenting on the budget controversy, emphasised that, “What you called the dispute on the budget, I want to say that Mr President made observations from the budget, he did not raise the objection.”
“Mr President assented to the budget. The time we are now, we are working on the implementation of the budget. We are working on steps to raise fund for the budget.
“You know that the greater part of the budget is going to be funded by the loan because it is a deficit budget. And so we are working on modalities to make appropriate request before the legislature,” the former lawmaker said.
