29 April 2017, Abuja — Nigerian lawmakers may approve the 2017 budget next week, with the process resuming after a top senator said work was stalled by police taking away key documents from his home, a presidential adviser said.
Lawmakers have returned to work on the budget, Ita Enang, President Muhammadu Buhari’s adviser on legislative affairs, told Bloomberg by phone Thursday from Abuja, the capital.
The police have returned cash, documents and all other items seized from the home of Senator Danjuma Goje, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, in the course of investigating alleged corruption, Bankole Omisore, a senate spokesman, told reporters on Thursday.
Goje said Wednesday that the police forced work on the budget to stop the invasion. His committee is tasked with making recommendations on the budget to the Senate, which then decides whether to accept it.
Buhari has proposed spending a record 7.3 trillion naira ($23 billion) to help revive an economy that shrank last year for the first time since 1991 amid plummeting oil revenue and dollar shortages. He’s also asked lawmakers to approve a plan to borrow $7 billion through 2018 from abroad.
*Yinka Ibikun & Paul Wallace – Bloomberg