The National Assembly has raised the 2017 appropriation bill by over N143bn, up from President Muhammadu Buhari’s original proposal of N7.298tn. The new figure of the budget is now N7.441tn. if all goes well, the budget will be passed on Thursday.

This was disclosed on Tuesday when the Senate received the report on the 2017 budget from its joint committees of Appropriation and Finance.

The Chairman of the Appropriation committee, Senator Danjuma Goje, laid the report before the upper legislative chamber.

The document was supposed to be presented on Thursday but it was postponed to this week to enable the committees of appropriation in the Senate and House of Representatives to make final edits.

The Senate Leader, Ahmed Lawan, had told newsmen last week that “They are meeting with the house committee on appropriation to cross the Ts and dot the Is of the 2017 budget by harmonising and I have also been informed that by the grace of God, the budget 2017 will be laid on Tuesday”.