Paul Ikpe's Blog ❤

Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to use the recovered looted funds in empowering farmers, artisans, and small businesses. He noted that the downtrodden were major victims of corruption. Bello, who said this in Lokoja while flagging off the wet season farming programme, said Nigeria’s potentialities in agriculture could be harnessed if properly funded. His words, “Let me congratulate Mr. President for using his global reputation as an uncompromising anti-corruption crusader to repatriate our stolen wealth. “The biggest victims of corruption are the downtrodden in the society who were deprived of quality standards of living. “To this end, I want to make a passionate appeal to Mr. President to invest recovered funds in agriculture in fulfillment of his promise to ensure the economy of Nigeria depends on agriculture and other non-oil sectors. “Those who criticised the Federal Government have forgotten that the $2 billion stolen in the

​ The National Assembly has passed the 2018 Appropriation Bill. The lawmakers on Wednesday during plenary passed the total sum of N9.120 trillion, an increase of N508 billion from the N8.612 trillion originally presented to the Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari. The Chairman Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Danjuma Goje explains that after consultation with the Executive, the oil benchmark price was increased from 45 to 51 dollars. He says the additional 508 billion added to the budget was applied in critical sectors of the economy namely: reduction of the deficit, security, health and power, works and housing. The House of Representatives also passed the 2018 budget with a recurrent expenditure of 3,512,677,902,077 and capital expenditure of 2,873,400,351,825. A debt servicing cost of 2,203,835,365,699 and statutory transfers of 530,421,368,624. Earlier, the passage of the budget had been delayed because the Ministries, Departments, and Agencies had not submitted

​ The National Assembly has raised the 2018 budget by over N508bn, bringing it to N9.12tn. The original estimates presented to the legislature on November 7, 2017 by President Muhammadu Buhari totalled N8.612tn. The new budget size was contained in the report of the joint Senate and House of Representatives Committee on Appropriation laid before lawmakers in Abuja on Tuesday. The crude oil benchmark price of the budget was also increased from $45 to $50.5. The benchmark alteration confirmed an exclusive story by  The PUNCH  on May 1, 2018 that lawmakers had proposed to increase the benchmark because of the steady rise in the global price of crude. From about $50 per barrel in November 2017 when Buhari laid the budget estimates, lawmakers noted that the crude oil price had jumped to around $80. At the House of Representatives, the Chairman, Committee on Appropriation, Mr. Mustapha Bala-Dawaki, presented the report to the House session, which was presided over by the Deputy Spea