By Ben Agande & Inalegwu Shaibu
THE Senate had admitted fault in the passage of the 2011 budget, saying most of the details were not considered due to the rush to pass the appropriation bill before the April election.

Chairman, Senate Committee on Information and Media, Senator Ayogu Eze while addressing journalists in Abuja, however, expressed confidence that all the misgivings in the 2011 budget will be corrected by supplementary budget.

He also assured Nigerians that the Senate will pass the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB before May 29.

He said: “This last lap of the sixth Senate which remains about a month will be positively eventful because we intend to make sure that we conclude all outstanding activities and ensure that we leave a clean slate as much as possible for the seventh senate.

“I’m aware that efforts are being made for the details of the 2011 Appropriation to be finalised so that the president can sign it and possibly come up with supplementary appropriation.

Supplementary budget

“My understanding is that the supplementary appropriation can take care of whatever misgivings may arise in the budget. I say so, even in my speech that there is likely going to be a supplementary appropriation. That is the way to cure whatever defect is in that budget, you must agree that we are human beings everybody was going for elections and they wanted the budget passed, but we found out that we need to do a supplementary appropriation, so we don’t have any problem with that.”

Senator Eze also explained that the delay in the signing of the bill by President Goodluck Jonathan was due to the inability of the Senate to complete work on the budget.

FG in talks with Senate —Budget Office

Meanwhile, the Federal Government is in talks with parliament over the 2011 budget proposal and expects to agree an amended version with a narrower deficit within weeks, Bright Okogu, Director General of the budget office said, yesterday.

The original budget plan presented by Jonathan implied a deficit of around 3.6 percent. Okogu said the final version would push the deficit “back in that direction.”

“Both sides recognise that this has to be sorted out before the new parliament comes into being, so we have a very tight target that we are both working towards,” he said.