Acting President receives 2017 budget from NASS

Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly (Senate), Sen. Ita Enang, on Friday transmitted the 2017 budget recently passed by the National Assembly to Acting President Yemi Osinbajo.

The event was done under closed-door, but Enang confirmed the delivery of the document to Osinbajo.

The budget as passed by the National Assembly has just been transmitted to the acting president. I just delivered it,’’ he told State House correspondents.

Enang used the opportunity to clarify the issue surrounding the power to sign the budget.

The acting president has the power to assent to the budget and he will assent to it when the processes are completed.

In February, he assented to seven or eight bills. Those that he didn’t agree with, he wrote the Senate and House of Representatives that he had withheld his assent from them.

He has the power of the president to assent to it,’’ he added.

The president’s aide also said that the assent to the Appropriation Bill would be after the completion of the standard operation processes.

According to him, 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 days or in two or three days.

It is upon the completion of the process that it will be assented to by the president, and the president here now is the acting president,’’ he explained.