Senate may approve 2019 INEC budget Thursday
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The Senate may approve the N143.3billion INEC budget for the conduct of the 2019 General Elections on Thursday.
Chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, Danjuma Goje gave the assurance on Wednesday in Abuja at a meeting of the committee.
The committee, he said, is determined to ensure that the report is presented by Thursday.
It would be recalled that the National Assembly Joint Committee on INEC had in August slashed the 2019 elections budget from N143.5 billion to N143.3 billion, representing a slash of over N200 million.
Senate President Bukola Saraki, who presided over the session, asked the Goje-led panel to submit its report within 24 hours.
Saraki also referred the President’s request to borrow $2.86 billion external loan to the Committee on Local and Foreign Debts and report back on Tuesday.
President Buhari had written to the Senate, seeking approval for $2,868,540,000 external borrowings.
The request was contained in a letter to both chambers of the National Assembly, which was read by Saraki at plenary on Tuesday.
This, the President said, would be used to partly fund the 2018 budget.
Giving a breakdown of the loan, Buhari explained that while $2.786 billion would be borrowed from the international capital market, the Federal Government would raise another $82.54 million from the international capital market to refinance the balance of $500 million mature Eurobond in the international capital market.
OWEDE AGBAJILEKE, Abuja