National Assembly, NASS, yesterday, said it has
scheduled March 17 to pass the 2016
Appropriation Bill of N6.08 trillion. Appropriation
Committees of both the Senate and House of
Representatives which disclosed this at a joint
press briefing, said the National Assembly has also
commenced consultations with the executive to
avoid controversies after the budget must have
been passed. Chairman of the House Committee
on Appropriation, Abdulmumini Jibrin, who briefed
alongside his Senate counterpart, Danjuma Goje,
also said Ministers of Finance, Kemi Adeosun,
Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udo-
Udoma, Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Governor,
Godwin Emefiele and the Accountant General of
the Federation, AGF, would meet with the
committees today, to iron out all grey areas in the
budget. Jibrin said Appropriation Committees of
both chambers had received the reports of budget
defences of ministries, departments, and agencies
from all the standing committees.
According to him, the Senate and the House of
Representatives will harmonise positions, after
going through their checklists to ensure that all
the reports were in line with the guidelines
provided by both the arms.
Jibrin said: “In the
next few days, we are going to open a lot of
consultation with the executive on this bill. “We
can confirm to you that all things being equal, we
should be able to lay our report of 2016
Appropriation Bill before the House and the
Senate before the 16th of March 2016. “And of
course the consideration should be done on 17th
of March 2017. “So it is safe for us to conclude
that the 2016 Appropriation Bill will be passed on
the 17th of March 2016.’’
Senator Goje also said the date was in keeping
with schedule set for the budget by the National
Assembly, which was being implemented
judiciously. Meanwhile, Centre for Social Justice,
CSJ, has called for an upward review of the
N19.4bn budgeted for maternal, new born and
child health in the 2016 budget. Programme
Officer of CSJ, Mr. Victor Emejuiwe, said in Abuja
yesterday that the allocation was insufficient. He
said the health budget as a percentage of the
overall budget estimate was just 4.23 per cent. He
said the allocation should be increased to meet
the 15 per cent African standard, owing to the
huge challenges facing the health sector in the
country. He emphasised the need for increased
funding for the sector because Nigeria was still
recording high rates of maternal and child
mortality.
He said: “The world health statistics rated Nigeria
as the second largest country after India with the
highest underfive mortality rate in the world. “As
a result, Nigeria loses 124 under-five children in
every 1,000 live births, hence the need to improve
funding and properly manage the funds allocated
to primary health centres.”
Emejuiwe said
government alone could not effectively fund the
health sector due to paucity of funds; there was
need to come up with innovative sources of
funding the sector. “The executive arm of
government should prepare a bill for universal
health coverage involving creative methods of
funding and send same to the National Assembly
for consideration. “This will improve economic
accessibility and affordability of maternal, new
born and child health as well as other health care
services,” he added.
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