>
Acting President Yemi Osinbajo has received the details of the 2017 appropriation bill recently passed by the National Assembly.
Reports said the N7.441trillion budget was handed over to Mr. Osinbajo behind closed doors by President Muhammadu Buhari’s Senior Special Assistant on National Assembly Matters, Senator Ita Enang.
The Acting President’s spokesman, Laolu Akande, tweeted this afternoon: “2017 Budget -Appropriations bill now officially received in the Acting President’s office & undergoing very prompt & diligent consideration”.
READ: JUST IN! Acting President Yemi Osinbajo will sign 2017 budget – Presidency
Recall that there had been controversy over whether the budget will be accented to by the Acting President or the President himself who is on medical vacation. Mr Osinbajo however said on Wednesday that he would sign the budget when satisfied with its contents.
READ ALSO: Signing of 2017 budget: I meant to say “Presidency” not President – Ita Enang
Speaking to state house correspondents after the delivery of the 2017 budget to Osinbajo on Friday, Enang said: “The budget as passed by the National Assembly has just been transmitted to the Acting President. I just delivered it.
“Let me use this opportunity to clarify an issue. The Acting President has the power to assent to the budget and he will assent to it when the processes are completed.
“The Acting President has the power to assent to the budget. In February, he assented to 7 or 8 bills. Those that he didn’t agree with, he wrote the Senate and House of Representatives that he had withheld his assent from them.”
Enang went on to maintain that the budget will be signed by the president as he earlier said, but the president here now is the acting president.
“He has the power of the president to assent to it. But the assent to the Appropriation Bill will be after the completion of the standard operation process.
“The bill has 30 days within which it will be assented to but the process can be completed within two or three days. So, it is not possible to say it will be assented to in so, so and so day or in two or three days.
“It’s upon the completion of the process that it will be assented to by the president and the president here now is the acting president.”