President Muhammadu Buhari has finally signed the 2018 Appropriation Act.

He signed the document a few minutes after midday on Wednesday in his office at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

The president announced that he signed on his Twitter handle, He wrote,

“a few minutes past noon today, I signed the 2018 Appropriation Bill into Law.”

See tweets:

A few minutes past noon today, I signed the 2018 Appropriation Bill into Law. #Budget2018 pic.twitter.com/zQfE5BTPol

— Muhammadu Buhari (@MBuhari) June 20, 2018

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.

— Muhammadu Buhari (@MBuhari) June 20, 2018

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.

— Muhammadu Buhari (@MBuhari) June 20, 2018

Many of the projects cut are critical and may be difficult, if not impossible, to implement with the reduced allocation. Some of the new projects inserted by @nassnigeria have not been properly conceptualized, designed and costed and will therefore be difficult to execute.

— Muhammadu Buhari (@MBuhari) June 20, 2018

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.

— Muhammadu Buhari (@MBuhari) June 20, 2018

Such examples of projects from which cuts were made are as follows:

— Muhammadu Buhari (@MBuhari) June 20, 2018

At a time when we are working with Labour to address compensation-related issues, a total of 5 billion Naira was cut from the provisions for Pension Redemption Fund and Public Service Wage Adjustment.

— Muhammadu Buhari (@MBuhari) June 20, 2018

The provision for Construction of the Terminal Building at Enugu Airport was cut from 2 billion Naira to 500 million Naira, which will further delay the completion of this critical project.

— Muhammadu Buhari (@MBuhari) June 20, 2018