President Muhammadu Buhari who signed the long-awaited 2018 Appropriation Act a few minutes after midday in his office at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, has blamed the National Assembly for reducing his proposed amount.

The president, who made this known on his Twitter handle said the changes made to the budget by the lawmakers amounted 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 wrote,

“I am however concerned about some of the changes @nassnigeria has made to the budget proposals I presented.

“The logic behind the constitutional direction that budgets should be proposed by the Executive is that, it is the Executive that knows & defines its policies & projects.

“Unfortunately, that has not been given much regard in what has been sent to me. 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.

“As it is, some of these projects relate to matters that are the responsibility of the States and Local Governments, and for which the Federal Government should therefore not be unduly burdened.”