>
The Senate on Tuesday unanimously adopted the corrected version of 2016 budget proposal sent to it by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The senate also resolved to begin work on the budget on Wednesday.
In the letter to the Senate, Buhari lamented that errors in the budget document he presented last December were not corrected before the presentation to the joint session of the National Assembly.
In his letter to the senate titled “2016 Budget Proposals”, President Buhari admitted the confusion that had been generated by the efforts to ensure that there were no errors in the budget document.
The letter also attracted some criticisms from some Senators because of the error in dates.
Buhari, in the first line of the letter wrote 2016 when in actual fact he meant 2015.
The President’s letter reads:
“It would be recalled that on Tuesday 22nd December, 2016, I presented my 2016 budget proposal to the joint sitting of the National Assembly. I submitted a draft bill accompanied by schedule of details. At the time of submission we indicated that because the details had just been produced and we would have had to check to ensure that there are no errors in the detail breakdown contained in the schedule. That has since been completed and I understand that the corrections have been submitted.
The National Assembly will therefore have the details as submitted on the 22nd and a copy containing the corrections submitted last week. It appears that this had led to some confusion. In this regard, please find attached a corrected version. This is the version that the National Assembly should work with as my 2016 budget estimates. The draft bill remains the same and there are no changes in any of the figures”
Shortly after reading the letter, Senate President, Bukola Saraki asked the Senate Leader, Muhammed Ali Ndume, to move a motion for the adoption of the document as the authentic budget proposal.
Saraki explained that the adoption of the President’s latest communication was to enable the Senate have it on record that the authentic document that would serve as the 2016 budget was the one attached to the letter.