Jonathan may sign 2012 budget today

Barring any last minute change in plan, President Goodluck Jonathan will sign the 2012 Appropriation Bill into law on Friday (today).

A Presidency source said the event, which is expected to be witnessed by principal officers of the two chambers of the National Assembly, would hold at the Presidential Villa before noon.

Jonathan had on Tuesday during the inauguration of the Almajiri Model School in Sokoto, given a hint that he would sign the bill into law before the end of the week.

The signing of the budget had been delayed due to some amendments made on the original bill by the lawmakers.

The Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, had last week told State House correspondents that the President had not signed the budget because of the need for the government to scrutinise the document.

She said the scrutiny became necessary because it was not always the same Appropriation Bill sent by the President that the National Assembly would pass.

The minister had said, “What we are doing now is that the National Assembly just gave us the budget back about few days ago, and of course, when they pass the budget, we have to look at the details because it is not always the same as the budget that Mr. President passed to them.

“So, we are doing that work, we are looking at the details. After looking at the details, we will have a meeting with the leadership of the National Assembly on Thursday to make sure that we reconcile and understand all the changes that may have been made, and after that, we will be ready to move on to the next step. That is where we are.”

Okonjo-Iweala identified the change in the crude oil benchmark price from $70 to $72 per barrel as one of the major changes carried out on the budget.

Source