By Henry Umoru

ABUJA—FOLLOWING the approval of 2017 budget estimates by the Federal Executive Council, FEC, the Senate said, yesterday, it would approve the 2017 to 2019 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) before the presentation of the 2017 Appropriation Bill next week.

Answering questions from journalists, yesterday, immediately after a meeting of the Senate Joint Committees on Finance, Appropriations and National Planning on MTEF, on whether the document will be approved, Chairman of the Committee, John Enoh, said: “We are hoping to approve MTEF next week; we have done the work as fast as we can to achieve that.”

Meanwhile, a source in the National Assembly has revealed that President Muhammadu Buhari has between next Wednesday and Thursday  to present the budget to a joint session of the National Assembly, just as his letter would be read on the floor of the upper chamber on Tuesday.

Following    the earlier rejection of the document by the Senate, which described it as ‘empty’, there were concerns that the upper chamber may not approve the document before its presentation next week.

On Wednesday, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved the 2017  budget proposal for onward submission to the National Assembly for  final approval.

Speaking further, Senator Enoh said:  “We have written to the various agencies of government that directly relate to MTEF to make their submissions.

‘’Some moments ago, we finished a Joint Committee of Finance, National  Planning, Appropriations meeting to look at the feedback and get a date  that we are going to have an interaction with the Executive next week.

‘’We cannot deal on MTEF and pass it without having to engage with the executive arm of government”.

On whether the walkout by PDP senators would negatively affect the  budget consideration, he said: “When you talk about cooperation, PDP  senators would not refuse to consider the 2017 budget”.