Nigeria’s Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu has blamed President Muhammadu Buhari of being responsible for the delays experienced in passing the country’s budget in the last four years.

Ekweremadu, who was reacting to the lead debate on the 2019 ₦8.83 trillion budget by the Senate leader, Ahmed Lawan on Tuesday reminded his colleagues that the constitutional provision for the nation’s financial year has always been from January to December of each year.

He lamented that President Buhari would always present the budget before the joint sittings towards the end of December, making it almost impossible for the Legislative arm to guarantee a quick passage of the budget.

“Mr. President, my distinguished colleagues, I must commend the Senate leader for the elaborate lead debate on the budget.

“However, the Executive is always responsible for budget delay. Section 318 of the 1999 Constitution as amended provided the budget circle from January to December of every year.

“In laying the annual budget before us late December as he has been doing, makes it difficult for us to meet up with January to December requirements,” Ekweremadu said.

While recalling how Buhari accused the 8th Senate of slowing down his administration for not passing annual budgets on time, Ekweremadu noted that the late passage of the budget was affecting agriculture in Nigeria as farmers could not access funds for commercial farming.