Nigeria’s 2018 budget could come in early as presidency plans sending it to NASS Nov 7

The presidency has indicated that it would send the 2018 Federal Budget to parliament November 7 in a move to avoid the delays that bogged down this year’s budget.

To this end, President Muhammadu Buhari has written to the lower house, the House of Representatives of the move to present the budget before legislators early for deliberations on it.

The letter was read in the in the House of Representatives Thursday by Yakubu Dogara, the speaker.

Although details of the budget are yet to be disclosed, according to a published document last month, the budget could reach a record N8.6 trillion, up 15.5 percent from this year.

Once Buhari has presented the 2018 budget to lawmakers, the lower and upper chambers of parliament would have to approve before it can be signed into law, a process that has taken many months previously.

Previous budgets have been beset by wrangling with lawmakers over line items, with the 2017 budget only signed into law halfway through the year. This is just as certain spending items are still being debated.

Budgets of the current administration have set record high level of spending, but analysts and economists say implementation, particularly on capital expenditure that is meant to jump-start infrastructure building, has been lacking.

Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, is seeking to spend heavily on infrastructure to promote growth as it had just climbed out of its first recession in 25 years in the second quarter of 2017.