Senate may pass 2020 revised budget Thursday

The Senate may on Thursday consider and pass the revised 2020 budget  as the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, gave this indication at plenary in Abuja after the Senate Committee on Appropriations laid the report on the budget on Wednesday.

According to him, “Tomorrow, we can receive and consider the report to ensure that we don’t delay anything as important as that. So, this is the essence of altering the order paper,” Lawan said.

The Senate had on Tuesday deferred the laying of the document over failure by the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, to write the Senate to include a shortfall of N186 billion as part of the N500 billion COVID-19 intervention fund of the Federal Government.

Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Barau Jibrin, had explained that the Minister did not send the letter to make up for the shortfall in the Bill as agreed with the Committee.

However, Lawan confirmed at plenary that the Minister had complied with the request of the Appropriations Committee by writing a letter to authorise the inclusion of the outstanding N186 billion earlier left in the revised 2020 budget.