Buhari
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari Tuesday said the 2019 general elections will cost the country about 242.4 billion Naira.
The general elections have been scheduled to hold February 16 and March 2, 2019, to elect the President and the National Assembly.
The 75-year-old president sent a letter to the National Assembly to seek the approval of the sum which will be drawn from the 2018 and 2019 budgets.
In the letter, he explained that implementing a budget of 9.12 trillion Naira in 2018 will be extremely challenging and did not consider it convenient.
Buhari, therefore, urged the lawmakers to transfer the funds appropriated for the new projects which were inserted in the 2018 budget to cover the sum of 228.8 billion Naira for the elections while the balance will be provided in the 2019 budget.
He had on June 20 signed the 2018 spending plan as passed by the lawmakers, after the N8.26 trillion estimate sent in by Buhari was jacked up to N9.12 trillion.
He criticised the National Assembly for reducing allocations for some projects and including thousands of projects into the budget without consultation with the Executive.
According to him, the National Assembly made cuts amounting to N347 billion in the allocations to 4,700 projects submitted to them for consideration and introduced 6,403 projects of their own amounting to N578 billion.
Buhari sends N242.9 billion 2019 election budget to Senate
