2016 budget not missing, to be debated Tuesday – Saraki

Senate President, Bukola Saraki, on Wednesday announced that members of the red chamber will begin a three-day debate on the 2016 Appropriation Bill  from Tuesday next week.

Saraki, who stated this at the resumption of plenary on Wednesday, explained that copies of the document will be distributed to members  as from Thursday.

He urged members of the senate to indicate the day they would  wish to make contributions on the fiscal document at the Senate President’ office before the end of the week.

The development had therefore laid to rest, speculations that the  Senate’s copy of the 2016 budget estimates submitted to the National Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari, on December 22, 2015, was missing.

There was confusion in the National Assembly onTuesday when the Senate Leader, Ali Ndume, reportedly told his colleagues at a closed session in the upper chamber that both the soft and hard copies of the 2016 Federal Budget was missing from federal parliament.

Ndume, according to some senators who spoke with our correspondent strictly on conditions of anonymity, lamented that the development will not allow the senate to go ahead with the necessary legislative process on the fiscal document at its plenary on Tuesday.

Members of the federal parliament who went on Christmas and New Year break afterwards were expected to begin work on it this week.Our correspondent learnt that the senators expressed shock when the news of the missing document was broken by Ndume and the information instantly led to a sharp disagreement between the members of the ruling All Progressives Congress, and the Peoples Democratic Party members in the chamber.

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