MDAs delaying passage of 2018 budget — Senate

By Hnery Umoru

ABUJA— The Senate, yesterday, accused Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, of delaying the passage of the 2018 budget.

Consequently, the upper legislative chamber gave the MDAs an ultimatum of seven days to submit details of their 2018 budget proposal.

It gave the ultimatum after Sunny Ogbuoji from Ebonyi State drew the attention of the lawmakers to the delay by the MDAs in submitting their budget reports.

This is not the first time the Senate is giving such ultimatum, except that this time, they are threatening to proceed without the input of the remaining MDAs.

Speaking during plenary, Ogbuoji, who is the vice-chairman of Senate Appropriation Committee, said the committee was having difficulty harmonising their report on the budget.

“Most of the sub-committees (on the 2018 budget) have huge challenges with the MDAs because majority of them are…